JohnHwangDD wrote: 40k skill is in list building, not on the tabletop, and a big component of list building is buying the new, expensive shiny.
To that end, SM exist as an army that is cheap to acquire and easy to play, forgiving of minor mistakes. That's why they're in the starter box. But they should never be competitive against an army that a player has to spend more money on. Hell, they shouldn't even be fun or good. Their entire point of existing is as a gateway to selling the players a better, more expensive army.
If anyone hasn't figured that out, they are kinda slow.
I think you forgot to point out that marines are also very easy to paint to ok/good tabletop quality, which is even more reason for them to suck because some tournaments award painting points. Therefore marines' current point cost is about right, or alternatively should be slightly increased like you suggested earlier.
Nothing wrong with Eldar being categorically better than SM in every edition. That's their role in the meta.
Of course, IG (and Orks) are better than Eldar, but fortunately, tournament constraints on time and board space make both of those unplayable competitively. SM have no right to complain when Eldar push their gak in when there's no IG or Orks around.
Also,. Not cynical - just calling out the GW business model, which is more subtle than most players recognize.
At top tournaments levels there's actually very little skills in 40k games.
Playing with semi-competitive or casual lists require skills, spamming supercheesy units and copy-pasting overpowered lists from the internet does not. It may require money, not skills.
Blackie wrote: At top tournaments levels there's actually very little skills in 40k games.
Playing with semi-competitive or casual lists require skills, spamming supercheesy units and copy-pasting overpowered lists from the internet does not. It may require money, not skills.
This isn't true. The skills are essentially the same. The difference is in the results.
Just a thought here:power armor may serve purposes not covered in the actual tabletop game. It allows marines to fight in all sorts of environments that normal forces canct fight in. It protects them from mass gassing weapons and diseases.
Those factor would matter a lot in the 40k reality while not showing up on the tabletop.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Nothing wrong with Eldar being categorically better than SM in every edition. That's their role in the meta.
Of course, IG (and Orks) are better than Eldar, but fortunately, tournament constraints on time and board space make both of those unplayable competitively. SM have no right to complain when Eldar push their gak in when there's no IG or Orks around.
Also,. Not cynical - just calling out the GW business model, which is more subtle than most players recognize.
Plenty of Ork and IG players would disagree with that assessment.
Eldar have always been jumping around the number one army sport for 7 editions or more, though it's hard not to when you get to break the rules because space elf.
If their is 1 edition where some other army than eldar were top and eldar actually had a hard counter in the meta it would be amazing what it would do to the game, eldar are a dead race they just need to except it and die already.
With all this talk of sisters 4++ bubbles it does raise the question as to who is shooting at battle sister infantry blobs with anti-tank weapons. So far in actual testing it's proven pretty pointless in that role - good for tanks digging in on turn 1 with the 5++ exorcists but the sisters don't have any high toughness deathstars to protect (at best they have the seraphim but no jump canoness), nor doesn't it help the penitents.
Ice_can wrote: If their is 1 edition where some other army than eldar were top and eldar actually had a hard counter in the meta it would be amazing what it would do to the game
5th edition. Had many issues but eldar weren't one of them.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Nothing wrong with Eldar being categorically better than SM in every edition. That's their role in the meta.
Of course, IG (and Orks) are better than Eldar, but fortunately, tournament constraints on time and board space make both of those unplayable competitively. SM have no right to complain when Eldar push their gak in when there's no IG or Orks around.
Also,. Not cynical - just calling out the GW business model, which is more subtle than most players recognize.
Plenty of Ork and IG players would disagree with that assessment.
Eldar have always been jumping around the number one army sport for 7 editions or more, though it's hard not to when you get to break the rules because space elf.
If their is 1 edition where some other army than eldar were top and eldar actually had a hard counter in the meta it would be amazing what it would do to the game, eldar are a dead race they just need to except it and die already.
By 7 editions or more you mean part of 4th, part of 5th, (almost none of either), 6th, 7th, and 8th?
That's four editions, if you're generous, closer to 3.5 editions.
The problem of Space Marines is that weapons are designed to alieviate all sorts of physical disadvantages. What makes a good army in 40K is the capacity to saturate your list with good weapons. Space Marines have better stats then any other infantry in the game, they thus cost more than any other infantry in the game, but they share the same high quality weapons with the Guard and all their enemies have equivalent weapons. The other big problem is that Space Marines have nearly the same proportion of special and heavy weapon saturation then their opponents. This leads their enemies to be able to bring more special and heavy weapon because they can afford more troops and thus more special and heavy weapons. The rest is just a question of force concentration. Eldars being extremely fast and specialised have the easiest time to apply force concentration and place their special and heavy weapons where they need them. That's why they have been, no matter the eddition, pretty much the best faction in 40K. They have a massive structural advantage over the enemy faction.
Eldar also are suppose to be fragil, but thanks to stuff like alaitoc and wave serpents, they are tougher then most marine stuff.
Marines or anything else that doesn't cost 5-6pts needs rules to be good. If dark reapers were dudes with missile lanuchers and s spears were +1str power weapon dudes with guardian stats, they would suck too.
Mmmpi wrote: By 7 editions or more you mean part of 4th, part of 5th, (almost none of either), 6th, 7th, and 8th?
That's four editions, if you're generous, closer to 3.5 editions.
Eldar have been top tier or thereabouts in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th.
5th is about the only edition where they have genuinely been a "hard to play/fragile so if stuff goes badly, you are so dead" army - and then only against some of the comically overpowered stuff of that edition. (Quite why some people think it was a time of great balance is a mystery to me.)
That’s a good write up of the situation, but I think it misses something critical: player satisfaction.
The last option, special rules, makes the game big and unwieldy. A good example is Custodes in 30k - they have the rules they need to make them play how they should, but there just so many rules going on that both players lose track of what’s happening. I think we can eliminate this as an option.
The first option, points rescaling, is as you say the path of least resistance. But it also offers the least player satisfaction - Marines end up as a semi-horde army that doesn’t play how people want them to play.
The second option, Primarisising, gives the most player satisfaction by making the army play how people want them to play, without bogging down the army in a mire of special rules.
Realistically, it should be options 2+3. Pretending that the overcomplicated nonsense that is 30k would be necessary here is silly.
Faith in Ceramite:
Models with this rule get to roll if a point of damage is suffered by any weapon with an AP of -1 or less. On a roll of a 4+, that damage is ignored.
That's an easy, simple rule that can be applied to any model with Power Armor.
Tactical Dreadnought Armor:
When models with this rule suffer damage from any weapon with an AP of -3 or higher, reduce the number of Wounds suffered by 1. Additionally, when making "Faith in Ceramite" rolls they ignore the damage on a 3+ instead.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Karol wrote: Eldar also are suppose to be fragil, but thanks to stuff like alaitoc and wave serpents, they are tougher then most marine stuff.
This is a thing that we see a lot in Infinity. Developers don't seem to understand that modifiers that reduce your ability to be hit will almost always prevail over being able to "tank" things.
ERJAK wrote: You could try running 120+ model blobs but you'll lose to any army that can quickly lock you into combat, can snipe your 5 wound Canoness, can out maneuver your incredibly slow infantry blob, or can simply outshoot your frankly pathetic offensive output.
Also "sniping" characters is laughable. You can't even snipe Guard Commanders and they're WAY less durable!
With a 170pt Deathmarks unit with zero stratagems, Dynastic Codes or support characters in Rapid Fire range you will kill a Cannoness. Which means ERJAK was right, a Cannoness can be sniped, and sniping characters is not laughable. It’s a steepish points investment (though a 3:1 investment to kill a target in one turn isn’t the worst), but snipers’ value isn’t in the character they kill, but the debuff of the units around the target caused my eliminating a lynchpin character.
The Canonness is maybe 45-50 points. That's not a great investment.
Sorry, Snipers aren't dangerous. Quit pretending they are.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Nothing wrong with Eldar being categorically better than SM in every edition. That's their role in the meta.
Of course, IG (and Orks) are better than Eldar, but fortunately, tournament constraints on time and board space make both of those unplayable competitively. SM have no right to complain when Eldar push their gak in when there's no IG or Orks around.
Also,. Not cynical - just calling out the GW business model, which is more subtle than most players recognize.
IG are better than Eldar? Really? When was the last time IG(not knights/BA with the loyal32) was placing above eldar competitively?. I think it was when the IG book first came out.
Orks remain to be seen, they're definitely got a solid book now and they might be better than Eldar overall.
Mmmpi wrote: By 7 editions or more you mean part of 4th, part of 5th, (almost none of either), 6th, 7th, and 8th?
That's four editions, if you're generous, closer to 3.5 editions.
Eldar have been top tier or thereabouts in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th.
5th is about the only edition where they have genuinely been a "hard to play/fragile so if stuff goes badly, you are so dead" army - and then only against some of the comically overpowered stuff of that edition. (Quite why some people think it was a time of great balance is a mystery to me.)
I've played eldar since 3rd. No it hasn't been top tier.
ERJAK wrote: You could try running 120+ model blobs but you'll lose to any army that can quickly lock you into combat, can snipe your 5 wound Canoness, can out maneuver your incredibly slow infantry blob, or can simply outshoot your frankly pathetic offensive output.
Also "sniping" characters is laughable. You can't even snipe Guard Commanders and they're WAY less durable!
With a 170pt Deathmarks unit with zero stratagems, Dynastic Codes or support characters in Rapid Fire range you will kill a Cannoness. Which means ERJAK was right, a Cannoness can be sniped, and sniping characters is not laughable. It’s a steepish points investment (though a 3:1 investment to kill a target in one turn isn’t the worst), but snipers’ value isn’t in the character they kill, but the debuff of the units around the target caused my eliminating a lynchpin character.
The Canonness is maybe 45-50 points. That's not a great investment.
Sorry, Snipers aren't dangerous. Quit pretending they are.
Someone seems to not understand how static buffs work.
Mmmpi wrote: By 7 editions or more you mean part of 4th, part of 5th, (almost none of either), 6th, 7th, and 8th?
That's four editions, if you're generous, closer to 3.5 editions.
Eldar have been top tier or thereabouts in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th.
5th is about the only edition where they have genuinely been a "hard to play/fragile so if stuff goes badly, you are so dead" army - and then only against some of the comically overpowered stuff of that edition. (Quite why some people think it was a time of great balance is a mystery to me.)
I've played eldar since 3rd. No it hasn't been top tier.
ERJAK wrote: You could try running 120+ model blobs but you'll lose to any army that can quickly lock you into combat, can snipe your 5 wound Canoness, can out maneuver your incredibly slow infantry blob, or can simply outshoot your frankly pathetic offensive output.
Also "sniping" characters is laughable. You can't even snipe Guard Commanders and they're WAY less durable!
With a 170pt Deathmarks unit with zero stratagems, Dynastic Codes or support characters in Rapid Fire range you will kill a Cannoness. Which means ERJAK was right, a Cannoness can be sniped, and sniping characters is not laughable. It’s a steepish points investment (though a 3:1 investment to kill a target in one turn isn’t the worst), but snipers’ value isn’t in the character they kill, but the debuff of the units around the target caused my eliminating a lynchpin character.
The Canonness is maybe 45-50 points. That's not a great investment.
Sorry, Snipers aren't dangerous. Quit pretending they are.
Someone seems to not understand how static buffs work.
Oh look, an Eldar player in denial. Now the posts make sense.
Also you need to include costs with those buffs. That's how the game works.
I've played eldar since 3rd. No it hasn't been top tier.
What....
Have you ever played eldar? Eldar have always been good thats their shtick.
I've played since 3rd too and my eldar have always consistently been powerful. The only time they weren't was during that small time in 3rd when it became hero hammer. but even then they were still great.
I've played eldar since 3rd. No it hasn't been top tier.
What....
Have you ever played eldar? Eldar have always been good thats their shtick.
I've played since 3rd too and my eldar have always consistently been powerful. The only time they weren't was during that small time in 3rd when it became hero hammer. but even then they were still great.
Yup, except for most of 7th due to working on other armies.
There's a vast difference between 'good' and top tier.
Sorry dude, that's how it goes.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Nothing wrong with Eldar being categorically better than SM in every edition. That's their role in the meta.
Of course, IG (and Orks) are better than Eldar, but fortunately, tournament constraints on time and board space make both of those unplayable competitively. SM have no right to complain when Eldar push their gak in when there's no IG or Orks around.
Also,. Not cynical - just calling out the GW business model, which is more subtle than most players recognize.
IG are better than Eldar? Really?
When was the last time IG(not knights/BA with the loyal32) was placing above eldar competitively?. I think it was when the IG book first came out.
Orks remain to be seen, they're definitely got a solid book now and they might be better than Eldar overall.
Yes, really. Eldar require the same effort to kill an IG dude as a SM dude, being the flipside of killing SM as easily as IG. Same with Orks. Except there are 2x or 3x as many IG / Orks on the tabletop.
As I noted, and you glossed over, IG / Orks are never placing competitively, because the SM players demand high points levels and short rounds, which make it impossible to play a competitive horde army like IG or SM.
40k has a basic Rock > Scissors > Paper balance, where Eldar > SM > IG/Orks, except that the majority SM players effectively banned IG/Orks from the tournament tables via "slow play" penalties. That's not an Eldar problem. That's a tournament problem, one that may be fairly laid at the feet of the SM players themselves for wanting to play with too many models.
Martel732 wrote: "'ve played eldar since 3rd. No it hasn't been top tier. "
I've played against them since 2nd. Yes, they have.
Once the Starcannon went up in points and dropped in #of shots, their reign from 3rd Ed. ended pretty quick. They were decidedly not top-tier for most of 4th and 5th edition. They had a renaissance again in 6th.
Martel732 wrote: "'ve played eldar since 3rd. No it hasn't been top tier. "
I've played against them since 2nd. Yes, they have.
Once the Starcannon went up in points and dropped in #of shots, their reign from 3rd Ed. ended pretty quick. They were decidedly not top-tier for most of 4th and 5th edition. They had a renaissance again in 6th.
Nah they were still king in 4th because of the Skimmers being stupidly good.
5th they were simply mid-tier. Very few armies can make the claim they were, at their worst, mid-tier.
CWE were #1 in 6e for *less than half* the edition. For more than half the edition, Eldrad + WW did something, but the rest of the book was garbage.
CWE were Top Tier in 7e. The whole time. Although Demons, Space Marines, and SuperFriends all made it to the same level at different times in that edition. They were undisputed #1 for a time, but most of 7e, the #1 spot was disputed.
CWE is a Top Tier book in 8e. But it's not #1. IG took that honor to start. CWE/Ynnari had a disputed claim on #1 off and on for a few months after both their Codex came out and CA came out, up until DE.
Lets look at some datapoints:
http://bloodofkittens.com/8th-edition-top-army-list-compendium/ -10 random top-placing lists from November: In my sample 1 CWE list.
-10 random top-placing lists from October:1 CWE list, 1 Ynnari CWE list
-10 random top-placing lists from September: 1 CWE list
-10 random top-placing lists from August: 0 CWE lists
Averaging 1/10 is not bad, but nowhere close to dominating the edition.
Martel732 wrote: "'ve played eldar since 3rd. No it hasn't been top tier. "
I've played against them since 2nd. Yes, they have.
Once the Starcannon went up in points and dropped in #of shots, their reign from 3rd Ed. ended pretty quick. They were decidedly not top-tier for most of 4th and 5th edition. They had a renaissance again in 6th.
Nah they were still king in 4th because of the Skimmers being stupidly good.
5th they were simply mid-tier. Very few armies can make the claim they were, at their worst, mid-tier.
I remember the Skimmers being basically the only thing they could compete with, though. Obnoxious as they were, I don't remember losing to them very much. Their codex was tightly limited in comparison to Chaos 3.5, Space Marines with their custom chapter traits, etc. I remember beating Eldar a lot with Necrons during that time, actually. Back when Necrons were more maneuverable than Eldar, because of teleportation shenanigans.
Martel732 wrote: "'ve played eldar since 3rd. No it hasn't been top tier. "
I've played against them since 2nd. Yes, they have.
Once the Starcannon went up in points and dropped in #of shots, their reign from 3rd Ed. ended pretty quick. They were decidedly not top-tier for most of 4th and 5th edition. They had a renaissance again in 6th.
Nah they were still king in 4th because of the Skimmers being stupidly good.
5th they were simply mid-tier. Very few armies can make the claim they were, at their worst, mid-tier.
I remember the Skimmers being basically the only thing they could compete with, though. Obnoxious as they were, I don't remember losing to them very much. Their codex was tightly limited in comparison to Chaos 3.5, Space Marines with their custom chapter traits, etc. I remember beating Eldar a lot with Necrons during that time, actually. Back when Necrons were more maneuverable than Eldar, because of teleportation shenanigans.
You can make the argument about needing a particular unit for several different iterations of armies.
I always bring up 6th edition Tyranids for this reason. They were a topping army but with what was possibly one of the worst written codices of all time in the game's history, completely held up by like a couple of units. The army was top tier for bad reasons, if that makes sense.
So just because Eldar relied on the badly written rules for Skimmers means nothing, because they were still strong.
Of course, IG (and Orks) are better than Eldar, but fortunately, tournament constraints on time and board space make both of those unplayable competitively. SM have no right to complain when Eldar push their gak in when there's no IG or Orks around.
Probably the funniest post in here. Orks and IG are amazing in ITC tournaments. But this guy is essentially trollposting and gakposting so who really cares what he says.
Of course, IG (and Orks) are better than Eldar, but fortunately, tournament constraints on time and board space make both of those unplayable competitively. SM have no right to complain when Eldar push their gak in when there's no IG or Orks around.
Probably the funniest post in here. Orks and IG are amazing in ITC tournaments. But this guy is essentially trollposting and gakposting so who really cares what he says.
I only speak to when I played competitively, which predates "ITC" by quite some time. When I played, Orks and IG were consistently low tier because ### SM > IG/Orks. But when I played, I had my gak together. You can check my gallery for "proof".
As for trolling and sh!tposting, that's what this entire post is, right? The SM players are doing nothing but trolling and sh!tposting the entire thread. And don't act like your post was content-free.
This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
Bharring wrote: This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
Bharring wrote: "^Marine players have complained about marine casualties since time immemorial."
We even had these threads when Marines *were* on top.
Granted, they're right, right now. Marines are in a bad place. But you wouldn't be able to tell just by reading DakkaDakka.
Kind of hard, marines are such in a poor spot. Anyone who vehemently defends and says its acceptable has not faced marine opponents and just how fast they can get slaughtered.
If we removed super heavies it wouldn't be enough to bring marines back to being good. Their units are too expensive and or do not do enough to rationalize their WPP or PPW.
I think it would go a long way to give all vet sarges +1 wound. And all close combat units in the marine codex +1 attack.
I'd rather give *all* Marines +1A than just the CC units. In theory, a Tac squad should be more of a threat to non-CC units than it is right now. Without being super scary. 2A really helps it there.
Bharring wrote: I'd rather give *all* Marines +1A than just the CC units. In theory, a Tac squad should be more of a threat to non-CC units than it is right now. Without being super scary. 2A really helps it there.
And as always, I answer: already happened. Just forget the minimarines exist, the Intercessors are the new tactical marines.
Bharring wrote: I'd rather give *all* Marines +1A than just the CC units. In theory, a Tac squad should be more of a threat to non-CC units than it is right now. Without being super scary. 2A really helps it there.
I can agree with that. +1 attack would fill the biggest problem marines are finding in not doing enough damage in combat.
Bharring wrote: I'd rather give *all* Marines +1A than just the CC units. In theory, a Tac squad should be more of a threat to non-CC units than it is right now. Without being super scary. 2A really helps it there.
And as always, I answer: already happened. Just forget the minimarines exist, the Intercessors are the new tactical marines.
Well no he is saying "All Marines get +1 attack."
Intercessors have a nasty habit of being stuck in tarpits.
I want Tac Marines, not Intercessors. I want an elite unit that brings a specialist weapon, a heavy weapon, and a more custom Sarge.
Same with ASM and Devs.
To that end, if Real Marines are going away, I hope they merge them with Intercessors + company instead of just drop the options. Not that I expect them to.
But, if we were trying to fix Real Marines, in addition to some other changes, +1A for Tacs/Devs/Asm would help. NOt enough alone to fix them, but probably part of a wider change.
Bharring wrote: I want Tac Marines, not Intercessors. I want an elite unit that brings a specialist weapon, a heavy weapon, and a more custom Sarge.
Same with ASM and Devs.
To that end, if Real Marines are going away, I hope they merge them with Intercessors + company instead of just drop the options. Not that I expect them to.
But, if we were trying to fix Real Marines, in addition to some other changes, +1A for Tacs/Devs/Asm would help. NOt enough alone to fix them, but probably part of a wider change.
Veterans might also need +1 wound honestly, regular marines should stay and scouts should fly out the door. As they are such simple models. Replacing the scout position with a tactical squads. And instead the old marines being a stepping stone towards becoming a primaris. (especially with the release of the rubicon process, turning regular marines into primaris.)
I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
Or old marines become scouts.
Sorta like Neophytes.
They skip the prepower armored and just them into power armor.
Then allowing tac marines to be a bit more of a scouting unit. (but means redoing their rules entirely)
Bharring wrote: Or Old Marines are rolled into Intercessor rules.
I disagree. Old marines should still be separate and them becoming what the old legions where would be a nice callback and would be a great integration with 30k players.
Asherian Command wrote: Yes I would. Rhinos are oddly positioned at 72 points. But why would I take grey knights in rhinos that can be exploded by anything? It is a vehicle that has protection against high-end weaponry. If a land raider or a predator tank had access to an invulnerable save they would be a bit more valuable.
If you think your Rhinos are more valuable against my Baneblade company with a 6++ than they otherwise wood be, then let me blow your mind:
What if I told you that my Baneblades let you have a 6+ anyways while they completely annihilated 3-4 Rhinos a turn?
Your Baneblades are silly, cheesy undercosted units compared to Rhinos so your comment is not really fair. Or alternatively Baneblade is correctly priced and Rhinos are overcosted.
Rhinos pay 72 points for 10 T7 3+ Wounds with little firepower. That's 7 points per wound. Baneblade pays 390 points for 26 T8 3+ Wounds with Baneblade Battle Cannon.
Baneblade cannon being Heavy3D6 S9 AP -3 Dmg. 3 is roughly Lascannon equivalent (S9 AP -3 Dmg. 1D6), so it should cost roughly 3x3.5x25 ~ 262 points, but I'm going to be generous and give it 50 point discount because you can target only one unit so we arrive at 212 point cost for Baneblade Battle Cannon when scaled with Lascannons.
This way we end up Baneblade costing 178 points for 26 T8 3+ Wounds, so Baneblade ends up costing about 7 points per wound, which can't be locked in melee and is actually quite a beast also in melee, unlike the rhino. Also the T7-T8 breakpoint is important and increases durability significantly.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: OMG. Just recost SMs at 15 pts per model as in 3E, and be done.
Might as well just remove them completely if this is your solution.
You used the price of BS3 lascannons. In either case it's a post hoc justification to fit a narrative.
Rhinos are just fine - shaving a few points off isn't going to magically make them better. With a Trukk at 59 you can't expect lower than 65 to 68 anyway.
Bharring wrote: This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
You left out some editions there. Marines usually do suck.
But, if we were trying to fix Real Marines, in addition to some other changes, +1A for Tacs/Devs/Asm would help. NOt enough alone to fix them, but probably part of a wider change.
People keep suggesting giving marines extra attack, wounds or AP. This is not going to happen. These are Primaris things, GW is not going to give them to old marines. If you want such rules, you can play primaris (or use your old marines as counts as primaris.) Trying to improve old marines at this point is about as relevant as trying to improve Bretonnians during the End Times.
How many editions did I leave out between 6E, 7E, and 8E?
Sure, there were editions before that. And in 5E, IG wasn't garbage. DE also wasn't always garbage (although didn't they go a *decade* without an update?). But for the past couple of editions, both were garbage.
But, if we were trying to fix Real Marines, in addition to some other changes, +1A for Tacs/Devs/Asm would help. NOt enough alone to fix them, but probably part of a wider change.
People keep suggesting giving marines extra attack, wounds or AP. This is not going to happen. These are Primaris things, GW is not going to give them to old marines. If you want such rules, you can play primaris (or use your old marines as counts as primaris.) Trying to improve old marines at this point is about as relevant as trying to improve Bretonnians during the End Times.
I disagree i am going to change my tune.
old Marines will become the scouts of the space marines, to harkon back to 30k
Techpriestsupport wrote: What if we just limited marine power armor reduction to -2? Make it so marine armor could be reduced to save mods but not o less than 5+?
That was quite a weird way to say 'give them 5+ invulnerable save.'
Techpriestsupport wrote: What if we just limited marine power armor reduction to -2? Make it so marine armor could be reduced to save mods but not o less than 5+?
That was quite a weird way to say 'give them 5+ invulnerable save.'
I changed that when I realized it would go like that. Now I think marine armor should just ignore 1 level of AP.
But, if we were trying to fix Real Marines, in addition to some other changes, +1A for Tacs/Devs/Asm would help. NOt enough alone to fix them, but probably part of a wider change.
People keep suggesting giving marines extra attack, wounds or AP. This is not going to happen. These are Primaris things, GW is not going to give them to old marines. If you want such rules, you can play primaris (or use your old marines as counts as primaris.) Trying to improve old marines at this point is about as relevant as trying to improve Bretonnians during the End Times.
Ok great for all the normal marines. But if in case of GK, they said they won't get primaris and the stats of GK unit wont get change, it just means they will end up bad for ever.
"Oh I wanna hit your Falcon with my S8 powerfist! Oh wait...I only hit you on 6's. And I hit whatever armor facing I actually am in base contact with so its always AV12. And I can only ever glance. Oh, then you roll 2d6 and take the lowest for results. Oh, and you have wargear to ignore the downside of being a skimmer and arent destroyed on an immobilized result. So, I'm gonna need almost 450 powerfist attacks here..."
Eldar have been a top tier army in every edition they have received a codex for. They've never been a bad army, the only time they ever drifted into even "mediocre" was 5E (where they had no 5E specific codex) and the first part of 6E. They have had some crap internal balance (Banshees...for basically ever), but so have most armies.
Bharring wrote: How many editions did I leave out between 6E, 7E, and 8E?
Sure, there were editions before that. And in 5E, IG wasn't garbage. DE also wasn't always garbage (although didn't they go a *decade* without an update?). But for the past couple of editions, both were garbage.
Weren't DEOP because of ++2 invisible beaststars? It is at least something people claim where I play.
Ok great for all the normal marines. But if in case of GK, they said they won't get primaris and the stats of GK unit wont get change, it just means they will end up bad for ever.
They will probably get Primaris models eventually, but that requires redoing almost the whole line just for them, as they're too distinct to share most models with other chapters. As this will be not happening any time soon, GW said it is not happening lest people stop buying current GK models (in case the there were some people who were not deterred by the quality of their rules.)
But, if we were trying to fix Real Marines, in addition to some other changes, +1A for Tacs/Devs/Asm would help. NOt enough alone to fix them, but probably part of a wider change.
People keep suggesting giving marines extra attack, wounds or AP. This is not going to happen. These are Primaris things, GW is not going to give them to old marines. If you want such rules, you can play primaris (or use your old marines as counts as primaris.) Trying to improve old marines at this point is about as relevant as trying to improve Bretonnians during the End Times.
That doesn't exactly help Chaos Space Marines. Well at least until GW decides to add Primaris Chaos Space Marines which I hope is never a thing. Granted, I think it is entirely possible that GW will just have Chaos Space Marines be not very good for time immortal too.
There were some 2++ CWE/DE lists that were scary. I had forgotten that the DE were more than a token presence there. Good point. CWE could do 2+ rerollable Deathstars without DE, but DE couldn't do gak without CWE.
CWE are the book that's been OP the most consistently. The runner up is Marines, which don't even come close. It's kinda scary.
But where is this idea that they're dominating this edition coming from? They had a strong couple months after their Codex, and are still a top-tier book. But looking at the past few months, pulling 10 top-placing lists at random, I was seeing 1/10 lists were CWE lists. That's not dominating. I was certainly seeing more Knight/IG/Etc than CWE/etc lists. And certainly more DE than CWE.
Whether you want to say it's Knight > CWE, IG > CWE, Etc > CWE, or IoM Soup > Eldar Soup, it's still clear CWE aren't the current #1. Even ignoring DE.
Ok great for all the normal marines. But if in case of GK, they said they won't get primaris and the stats of GK unit wont get change, it just means they will end up bad for ever.
They will probably get Primaris models eventually, but that requires redoing almost the whole line just for them, as they're too distinct to share most models with other chapters. As this will be not happening any time soon, GW said it is not happening lest people stop buying current GK models (in case the there were some people who were not deterred by the quality of their rules.)
So if they know that the primaris GK aren't coming soon, why aren't they fixing the rules. I get that they wouldn't want people to buy normal marines, if the near future means a AoS style of squashing normal marines. They want to avoid the flakk they got and are still getting anywhere outside of UK and US for what they did to WFB. Makes sense, I have no problem with it. But what is the sense in keeping an army bad, when you won't update it any time soon and the quality of the rules does not help at all. People more or less have to be tricked in to starting GK. And If stuff like CA is ment to for it, it is a rather scumy thing to do.
Well, I don't think there's any grand strategy nor malice behind GK being bad. GW just failed with the codex, then they got hit by blanket nerfs aimed at other stuff. And now they probably don't know how to fix them. They tried in CA, and whilst it may not be enough it is better than nothing. GK are kinda tricky army to balance though, as they have such an limited selection of units.
Generally, marines are as good as their transports. In 7th edition, having free, open topped transports was good, so marines were good.
Currently, marines have no effective way to gain mobility. You can have the right tool for the job but getting it to where it needs to be is a rather difficult proposition if the unit can't DS.
Secondly, the number of attacks per model has amped up so much in 8e. Orks throwing out 5 attacks with exploding 6s per model. There is no defense against this. A unit of Skarboyz fighting twice expects to kill a basic Imperial Knight. That attack volume is intense. Imperial Guardsmen can effortlessly throw out 3x Strength 4 attacks per model. All the while, marines really don't have good volume defense, or volume offense.
A good start is 2w, 2a marines, base. Most people assumed at the start of 8th edition that marines would have 2 wounds, because it made sense based on the fundamentals of 8th edition. 2 attacks also seemed reasonable. There were some Space Marine models (like Purifiers) that actually lost attacks from 7th to 8th.
Another good change would be to reduce the cost of Rhinos, and Razorbacks. Marines with 2a, 2w, riding inside affordable rhinos & razors would change the game in a good way.
Additionally, scaling squads really needs to happen. Marines are really the only army that suffers from morale. Every other army has either amazing mitigation, or models so cheap it doesn't matter. ATSKNF is weak. Super weak. The morale mechanic prohibits 10 man squads, and also, with the command point structure + squad loadout options, it is objectively a bad decision to run 10 man squads outside of niche cases supported by stratagems. A 10 man squad with 2 sergeants and 4 special weapons might mean something, if it was also running around immune to morale (as an example).
For whatever reason folks on dakka have a vested interest in keeping space marines bad. I don't understand why, but that's the case. As a competitive player, marines are kind of a joke right now. They can win games, sure, but by in large they have numerous hard counters, and frankly have a very difficult time building to address other meta lists.
Marines are outclassed by guardsmen in shooting and melee. When will this madness end?
Cause marines are for new players and they need training wheels.
/sarcasm
Honestly, people on here are very defensive when it comes to marines vs guardsmen. If yo saw the discussions on this thread, it got heated even though we have actual math to prove that marines statistically lose to guardsmen in WPP and PPW.
People will look at data and think "That means nothing from my experiences!" Which is a common mentality among people? I've seen it here so many times it kind deflates everyone's arguments. I certainly got a bit peeved when someone said that. It became a waste of time as we know from even mathematics and from tournament listings... People don't bring marines in. Even in soup lists.
Marines are terrible and will continue to be terrible until they are overhauled. SAying they don't need one is living outside of the reality of the tournament scene. just because 1 character that is a space marine shows up at an ITC for 1 list does not mean "marines are great!"
While even from my own personal experiences I've not played a marine player in months. no one wants to play them, no one has fun playing them. Players will drop them not because they don't look cool but because they are so poorly optimized for this edition. Points Costs, and stats, in general, would help marines. Taking them as 'normal' line infantry only makes sense if you can take them in numbers. But you can't there is no point to take a full squad of marines because they are far too expensive to be considered valuable. You can take 1 additional combi weapon compared to a guardsmen squad but thats not why people run guardsmen, guardsmen are run for CHEAP CP and the bonuses they get from knights.
This edition is a mess due to the over prevelance of super heavies. Honestly just ban super heavies from tournaments and matched play and most complaints would disappiate but marines still suffer from fighting in close combat where they are undoubtedly the weakest apart from tau who are supposed to be bad...
Bharring wrote: This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
That's literally not what's going on. At all
It really is though.
As for 3rd ed eldar. As the 6th ed chaos book showed us, having one good spam list doesn't make a top tier codex. 3rd ed eldar was all star cannons all the time.
Bharring wrote: This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
That's literally not what's going on. At all
It really is though.
As for 3rd ed eldar. As the 6th ed chaos book showed us, having one good spam list doesn't make a top tier codex. 3rd ed eldar was all star cannons all the time.
6th edition CSM was top tier in certain aspects. Huron/Ahriman infiltrating Plague Zombies, Heldrakes, Obliterators being...okayish, Daemon Princes with Relics, Juggerlords w/ Bikers or Spawn...
The issue is how utterly garbage the codex was written, which eventually brought it down. When you only get one Juggerlord and one Mace Prince and your opponent has like 6+ Wave Serpents, what're you gonna do?
Bharring wrote: This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
That's literally not what's going on. At all
It really is though.
As for 3rd ed eldar. As the 6th ed chaos book showed us, having one good spam list doesn't make a top tier codex. 3rd ed eldar was all star cannons all the time.
6th edition CSM was top tier in certain aspects. Huron/Ahriman infiltrating Plague Zombies, Heldrakes, Obliterators being...okayish, Daemon Princes with Relics, Juggerlords w/ Bikers or Spawn...
The issue is how utterly garbage the codex was written, which eventually brought it down. When you only get one Juggerlord and one Mace Prince and your opponent has like 6+ Wave Serpents, what're you gonna do?
Nah, Eldar was still top, fro the start they had Beaststar, (beastmen Deathstar with Baron, Farseer on bike, Shadowseer, and max Beasts, it all was buffed from powers, hit and run, move run and charge, and was almost impossible to kill with large damage output. After that the CWE codex came out and Wave Serpent spam was a thing. Chaos was only strong in local areas that didnt know the killer Deathstar combos
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
Admittedly I have said "It won't be" because i haven't seen evidence of it. If anything regular marines will just be normal troops for space marine armies probably replacing scouts. (cause when was the last time they released a scout model?)
Cause marines are for new players and they need training wheels.
/sarcasm
Honestly, people on here are very defensive when it comes to marines vs guardsmen. If yo saw the discussions on this thread, it got heated even though we have actual math to prove that marines statistically lose to guardsmen in WPP and PPW.
People will look at data and think "That means nothing from my experiences!" Which is a common mentality among people? I've seen it here so many times it kind deflates everyone's arguments. I certainly got a bit peeved when someone said that. It became a waste of time as we know from even mathematics and from tournament listings... People don't bring marines in. Even in soup lists.
Marines are terrible and will continue to be terrible until they are overhauled. SAying they don't need one is living outside of the reality of the tournament scene. just because 1 character that is a space marine shows up at an ITC for 1 list does not mean "marines are great!"
While even from my own personal experiences I've not played a marine player in months. no one wants to play them, no one has fun playing them. Players will drop them not because they don't look cool but because they are so poorly optimized for this edition. Points Costs, and stats, in general, would help marines. Taking them as 'normal' line infantry only makes sense if you can take them in numbers. But you can't there is no point to take a full squad of marines because they are far too expensive to be considered valuable. You can take 1 additional combi weapon compared to a guardsmen squad but thats not why people run guardsmen, guardsmen are run for CHEAP CP and the bonuses they get from knights.
This edition is a mess due to the over prevelance of super heavies. Honestly just ban super heavies from tournaments and matched play and most complaints would disappiate but marines still suffer from fighting in close combat where they are undoubtedly the weakest apart from tau who are supposed to be bad...
Except that people are disagreeing with your math and the conclusions you draw from it.
No one is claiming marines are strong. People are showing that your conclusions are off and your fixes are problematic, barring a minor change in points.
The main reason you don't see them in tournaments is because they're .01% (number is for emphasis, not accuracy) less efficient then another army book in soup.
Your issue isn't with the powerlevel of marines vs IG. Your issue is that anything no matter how crappy, costs less and is a troop choice. Of course IG make a better suicide screen and CP battery. They're cheaper. But if IG were 5 points each and WS/BS 6+ people would still take them over marines for that role.
Ultimately your issue is CP generation, the effect of soup on highly tuned tournament lists, and the fact that you apparently want your tac squads to run dick first into an entire army and win.
Bharring wrote: This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
That's literally not what's going on. At all
It really is though.
As for 3rd ed eldar. As the 6th ed chaos book showed us, having one good spam list doesn't make a top tier codex. 3rd ed eldar was all star cannons all the time.
6th edition CSM was top tier in certain aspects. Huron/Ahriman infiltrating Plague Zombies, Heldrakes, Obliterators being...okayish, Daemon Princes with Relics, Juggerlords w/ Bikers or Spawn...
The issue is how utterly garbage the codex was written, which eventually brought it down. When you only get one Juggerlord and one Mace Prince and your opponent has like 6+ Wave Serpents, what're you gonna do?
As you say. Had some good builds, but weren't close to top tier.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
Admittedly I have said "It won't be" because i haven't seen evidence of it. If anything regular marines will just be normal troops for space marine armies probably replacing scouts. (cause when was the last time they released a scout model?)
But that's still speculation with nothing behind it. Just a rumor mill that's churning between releases and over enthusiasm from people like Crimson.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The Canonness is maybe 45-50 points. That's not a great investment.
Sorry, Snipers aren't dangerous. Quit pretending they are.
A Cannoness with Power Sword and Inferno Pistol - which has an official model and isn’t the worst loadout - is 56pts. A Deathmarks unit killing her in one go for 170pts is a 3.0:1 ratio, which isn’t the best ever but isn’t bad either. If your whole army could pull a 3.0:1 points kill ratio, in any game where you got first turn you’d effectively be playing with a 2000pt army against a 1333pt army, which is pretty much an auto-win.
A unit doesn’t have to have a 1:1 or better points kill ratio to be good. Snipers are a niche unit whose purpose is to remove a lynchpin model from your opponent’s army, not have an extreme points kill ratio. If you can’t understand why removing the model that enables synergy from an army whose strength comes from synergy is worth a points kill ratio that is ok rather than great, then I can’t help you.
Techpriestsupport wrote: What if we let marine armor ignore 1 level of save mod? So a -3 mods becomes a -2 for example.
Little late reply. I don't like this. Thinking about it now. Plasma weaponry should be the bane of space marines no matter what. Infact I wish plasma sorta outright ignored +3 armor saves.
Every time people mention using force multipliers that help marines more than IG, you double down on pounding the mathz again.
That's why I think you're saying it.
Not quite. But i do think that IG do get more CP and have cheaper access to better strategems. (which might be because GW wants to sell vigilius the jerks!)
Cheaper CP generation would be great for marines, but we won't see that at all.
Maybe just a points cost reduction for tac marines? and just make them into the cheap cp generation and remove their special weapons and heavy weapons and make that only for veteran squads? (like 30k possibly? I personally prefer that honestly)
Asherian Command wrote: just make them into the cheap cp generation and remove their special weapons and heavy weapons and make that only for veteran squads? (like 30k possibly? I personally prefer that honestly)
While I've stated before that this problem is sourced entirely from 40k terribleness, it's also compounded by CP's. If you want a more balanced game, just don't use stratagems or CP's at all. They're a terrible gimmick anyway that act purely as a crutch for poor rule writing and balancing.
Wyzilla wrote: While I've stated before that this problem is sourced entirely from 40k terribleness, it's also compounded by CP's. If you want a more balanced game, just don't use stratagems or CP's at all. They're a terrible gimmick anyway that act purely as a crutch for poor rule writing and balancing.
I think if CPs rewarded you more for completely a detachment they would be less gimmicky
Currently there is no benefit to filling out a full detachment.
A probable way to do that is also to have players or require players to spend CP in order to have super heavies.
Wyzilla wrote: While I've stated before that this problem is sourced entirely from 40k terribleness, it's also compounded by CP's. If you want a more balanced game, just don't use stratagems or CP's at all. They're a terrible gimmick anyway that act purely as a crutch for poor rule writing and balancing.
I think if CPs rewarded you more for completely a detachment they would be less gimmicky
Currently there is no benefit to filling out a full detachment.
A probable way to do that is also to have players or require players to spend CP in order to have super heavies.
Eh? Detatchments reward me a lot considering they allow me to turn some hellblasters/ravenwing black knights into a plasma doomstar pumping out enough shots from just one stratagem use that they'll turn most armor units into mush when concluded. The issue is that if you're using CP's to fix marines, you haven't fixed anything. You've just slapped a band-aid on that's going to peel off in a couple months and given up.
Wyzilla wrote: While I've stated before that this problem is sourced entirely from 40k terribleness, it's also compounded by CP's. If you want a more balanced game, just don't use stratagems or CP's at all. They're a terrible gimmick anyway that act purely as a crutch for poor rule writing and balancing.
I think if CPs rewarded you more for completely a detachment they would be less gimmicky
Currently there is no benefit to filling out a full detachment.
A probable way to do that is also to have players or require players to spend CP in order to have super heavies.
I could get behind this detachment idea.
Have a battalion for example give 2CP, three if at 2/3rds, and five if full. Granted at that point you'll see the loyal 36, rather than 32. On initial look though it has some promise.
As for super heavies costing CP. No. We want people's lists to work without batteries, not require them to take more.
I'm going to have to challenge rhino nay-sayers a bit more, I suppose.
A squad of 10 tacs is 130.
A squad of 5 tacs and a rhino with 2 SB is 139.
A squad of 5 tacs and a razor with THB and SB is 154.
Let's say you expect to lose half your marines getting them into a good spot. Why *wouldn't* you just drop that half, pay 9 points more, and get a 12" move, 10 T7 wounds instead of 5 T4, and one less bolter equivalent? Or hell, a razorback with a twin heavy bolter and storm bolter for only 24 points more?
Last I knew there are few melee oriented armies that can fall back and shoot and fewer still that can flee a rhino and then charge. Orks certainly have no way to avoid being pinned by a rhino and losing a round or two of combat. Guardsmen are compartmentalized, so shooting (and charging) them (with rhinos) before they charge you makes them a whole lot weaker.
It seems people are reluctant for a few reasons: 1) rhinos are not troops and so do not help with battalions, 2) they think rhinos are too expensive, and 3) they want to transport "something worthwhile".
1) There is no helping this. It's a legitimate downside.
2) If rhinos went down 5 points you'd save 25 points for 5 of them in your list. Why does 25 points stop you?
3) Two parts here --
a) Spending a lot of points on a unit makes you want to have it outside the transport, anyway
b) Chosen and the like are decently priced now and you don't need a special weapon on every damn model.
Wyzilla wrote: While I've stated before that this problem is sourced entirely from 40k terribleness, it's also compounded by CP's. If you want a more balanced game, just don't use stratagems or CP's at all. They're a terrible gimmick anyway that act purely as a crutch for poor rule writing and balancing.
I think if CPs rewarded you more for completely a detachment they would be less gimmicky
Currently there is no benefit to filling out a full detachment.
A probable way to do that is also to have players or require players to spend CP in order to have super heavies.
I could get behind this detachment idea.
Have a battalion for example give 2CP, three if at 2/3rds, and five if full. Granted at that point you'll see the loyal 36, rather than 32. On initial look though it has some promise.
As for super heavies costing CP. No. We want people's lists to work without batteries, not require them to take more.
Well they would need 3 hqs, 6 troops, 3 fast attack, and 3 heavy support
So to fill this out... you would need
HQ 3 Company Commanders
Troop 6 Infantry Squads
Elite 3 commissars
Fast Attack 3 Scout Sentinels
Heavy Support 3 Tarantula batteries
for 585 pts
Honestly, that is around 4 times more expensive than the original! (math is bad mkay)
Honestly there could be a way to also have a scoring system based on points cost per a detachment. But i am not too sure that would work or might unnecessary punish certain lists. (this would only be relevant to battalions or brigade detachments).
Whether not that works is up for debate.
Another could just be limiting CPs to only factions. (so if I am a guardsmen I can only take guardsmen CP for my guardsmen strategies)
Which would encourage monofactions?
I am not sure that might kill competitive lists entirely.
Absolutely. AM are by far the most powerful stand alone army. And they are since day one of 8th edition, since index times. Crafworld are definitely a top tier army but AM is insane.
Also their imperium soup is more powerful than the elves' one at the moment as the castellan combo is the most broken thing in 40k.
Absolutely. AM are by far the most powerful stand alone army. And they are since day one of 8th edition, since index times. Crafworld are definitely a top tier army but AM is insane.
Also their imperium soup is more powerful than the elves' one at the moment as the castellan combo is the most broken thing in 40k.
I disagree, pure DEIMO is a stronger stand alone army, RWJF, Ravagers back by meat mountains, easy and cheap Haywire, etc...
I'd agree with dark eldar being the best mono faction, lots of good stuff with very few weaknesses, except psykers obviously but power from pain gets them nice buffs anyway.
No, I think they are the best anti tournament meta army not the best stand alone army overall. I consider orks superior to pure DE in any possible way if they face each other using their best lists.
Stand alone DE are amazing only in metas where knights reign and everyone brings 25 lascannons and 25 plasma to deal with them. But those metas are affected by the soup since pure knights aren't that powerful, and if soup was banned they'd completely change.
Blackie wrote: No, I think they are the best anti tournament meta army not the best stand alone army overall. I consider orks superior to pure DE in any possible way if they face each other using their best lists.
Stand alone DE are amazing only in metas where knights reign and everyone brings 25 lascannons and 25 plasma to deal with them. But those metas are affected by the soup since pure knights aren't that powerful, and if soup was banned they'd completely change.
Meat Mountain deals with Orks tho.... 20 T6, 4++/6+++ 4 wound models can deal with 120 orks.
Daedalus81 wrote: A squad of 10 tacs is 130.
A squad of 5 tacs and a rhino with 2 SB is 139.
A squad of 5 tacs and a razor with THB and SB is 154.
Let's say you expect to lose half your marines getting them into a good spot. Why *wouldn't* you just drop that half, pay 9 points more, and get a 12" move, 10 T7 wounds instead of 5 T4, and one less bolter equivalent? Or hell, a razorback with a twin heavy bolter and storm bolter for only 24 points more?
I think its because the Rhino doesn't really do anything - and while its cheap wounds so inefficient to kill, its not exactly hard to do so.
You also have the issue that models in transports die (a single tac isn't exactly an issue, but it can add up if you are unlucky) and they can also explode scattering mortal wounds everywhere.
I mean lets say you took 3 squads of tacs in a rhino. That's over 400 points. Throw in some special weapons on those tacs and we could be at 500.
And... turn 1 they are not doing anything. Drive up pop smoke and hope not to die.
Turn 2... still not really obvious what they are doing. If still alive rhinos can move up, fire their stormbolters and charge some stuff - but really I'm not convinced orks or anyone else are overly troubled by this. Most "good" assault units have a reasonable chance of killing a rhino in a single turn - and are usually looking for a turn 1 charge all across the table, or deepstriking/teleporting anyway. MSU screens will just withdraw in exchange for a relatively token loss of firepower. While a rhino in itself isn't much, if you lose 3-4-5 in a turn that's a large chunk of your army.
You are right that 2SBs=4 bolters, but bolters are awful. 70 or so points to kill 2 guardsmen or fire warriors? Even buffed up this is a long way from good.
Razorbacks have a bit more shooting in exchange for a bit more points, but its a similar issue. Razorbacks are arguably better than tactical marines in themselves (although still vulnerable to heavy weapons) - but they don't justify taking tactical marines when you could take anything to unlock them.
Its kind of marines all over. Having poor damage output while not being especially tough or especially fast equals a poor unit.
Blackie wrote: No, I think they are the best anti tournament meta army not the best stand alone army overall. I consider orks superior to pure DE in any possible way if they face each other using their best lists.
Stand alone DE are amazing only in metas where knights reign and everyone brings 25 lascannons and 25 plasma to deal with them. But those metas are affected by the soup since pure knights aren't that powerful, and if soup was banned they'd completely change.
Meat Mountain deals with Orks tho.... 20 T6, 4++/6+++ 4 wound models can deal with 120 orks.
What's Meat Mountain?
Not only that 120 dudes, imagine the loota bomb with its average of 54 HITS per turn. Also traktor kannons and smasha gunz are ideal weapons against drukhari.
Blackie wrote: No, I think they are the best anti tournament meta army not the best stand alone army overall. I consider orks superior to pure DE in any possible way if they face each other using their best lists.
Stand alone DE are amazing only in metas where knights reign and everyone brings 25 lascannons and 25 plasma to deal with them. But those metas are affected by the soup since pure knights aren't that powerful, and if soup was banned they'd completely change.
Meat Mountain deals with Orks tho.... 20 T6, 4++/6+++ 4 wound models can deal with 120 orks.
What's Meat Mountain?
Not only that 120 dudes, imagine the loota bomb with its average of 54 HITS per turn. Also traktor kannons and smasha gunz are ideal weapons against drukhari.
Meat mountain is Coven with loads of Grotesques, haems and Urien, Grots T6, 4 wounds, 4++, 6+++, 5 attacks, S6 -1ap, Wracks, T5, 4++/6+++ 3 attacks wounds on 4+ The Lootas will be dealth with via Ravagers and RWJF
Meat mountain is Coven with loads of Grotesques, haems and Urien, Grots T6, 4 wounds, 4++, 6+++, 5 attacks, S6 -1ap, Wracks, T5, 4++/6+++ 3 attacks wounds on 4+ The Lootas will be dealth with via Ravagers and RWJF
Yeah, I've done several playtesing about Drukhari (similar to Meat mountain but with raiders and talos instead of wracks, 2 flyers and 10 grots) vs green tide orks with 25 lootas and 18 CPs, always win with my orks. Wracks can be completely ignored as they're slow and even if they manage to assault they'll do nothing special. 120 boyz can deal with 20 grotesques and lootas can melt 3+ vehicles in a single turn of shooting. 30-60 boyz can deep strike and charge with 72% odds in favor. An ork warboss with proper trait and free relic can 1-shot a knight in combat for only 99 points, he'll do his contribute in assisting the boyz in melee.
If orks go first Agents of vect will be used to avoid double shooting, and it would be absolutely needed in second turn to prevent Grot Shields. It's already 8 CPs just to deal with the lootas, without preventing all their damage output.
If drukhari go first they can kill just the 10 lootas that are visible by using agents of vect, next turn those remaining 15 can have their retaliation and you'd need another agents of vect only to prevent them firing twice. In both cases you'd be out of CPs after two uses of Agents of vect.
Fielding those 20 grots is also quite unusual, only a few dudes actually own the models while this type of orks list is the flavour of the month for the ork players and is already showing up in all the competitive metas. After trying it I've shifted to another style of playing because I found that kinda boring, but it can be meta breaking. Against drukhari (without knowing the list) I'd go with 3x T8 vehicles, deep strikers and mek gunz heavy spam which is another competitive built for orks, less anti meta oriented though as there would be more appropriate targets for the anti tank.
An AM proper gunline should deal very well against drukhari too, it definitely has more firepower due to a huge amount of insanely cheap but effective units. Craftworld are also not inferior.
Daedalus81 wrote: A squad of 10 tacs is 130.
A squad of 5 tacs and a rhino with 2 SB is 139.
A squad of 5 tacs and a razor with THB and SB is 154.
Let's say you expect to lose half your marines getting them into a good spot. Why *wouldn't* you just drop that half, pay 9 points more, and get a 12" move, 10 T7 wounds instead of 5 T4, and one less bolter equivalent? Or hell, a razorback with a twin heavy bolter and storm bolter for only 24 points more?
I think its because the Rhino doesn't really do anything - and while its cheap wounds so inefficient to kill, its not exactly hard to do so.
You also have the issue that models in transports die (a single tac isn't exactly an issue, but it can add up if you are unlucky) and they can also explode scattering mortal wounds everywhere.
Its kind of marines all over. Having poor damage output while not being especially tough or especially fast equals a poor unit.
I want to use my marines and my approach currently is basically to have rhinos for them or not play them at all. Having a rhino for them really increases their durability, like discussed earlier in this topic, everything that is good or ok at killing cheap T3 wounds usually is point-by-point more efficient at killing marines, so it makes no sense to have the marines out in the open they are slow and pretty easy to kill if you apply loads of dice.
One solution for buffing basic marines could be to increase base melee attacks to 2, and make special marine bolter or something that is rapid-fire 2, while simultaneously dropping price of Rhino some 5-10 points. Ooops, my basic marine suggestion is basically CSM Chosen with Combi-bolter!
I would like to suggest every marine gets BS 2+ and WS 2+ but this could have some negative effects if extended to every MEQ. However the bottom line should be to increase damage output of basic marines (+1 A, BS into 2+ etc.) while providing better defense to them. Marine units sitting in cover can already become quite durable so they are fine, however marines are very immobile so slight point decrease to rhino (or altenatively give rhino T8 + 1 or 2 extra wounds) would also increase their relative durability. Also I really would like to see destroyed Rhinos stay on field to allow marines hide behind them, but this would allow some cheesy tactics I'm afraid.
Also not being able to charge after disembarking from Rhino is really punishing for the marines, especially because they need the Rhinos and they don't even have that good melee power. But then we are reminded that there are Khorne Berserkers who can fight 2-3 times and get extra attack after for Fight Phase if they are WE so end result is atleast for CSM the Rhino cannot be allowed to be too cheap or to allow charging after disembarking because Khorne Berserkers exist.
Daedalus81 wrote: A squad of 10 tacs is 130.
A squad of 5 tacs and a rhino with 2 SB is 139.
A squad of 5 tacs and a razor with THB and SB is 154.
Let's say you expect to lose half your marines getting them into a good spot. Why *wouldn't* you just drop that half, pay 9 points more, and get a 12" move, 10 T7 wounds instead of 5 T4, and one less bolter equivalent? Or hell, a razorback with a twin heavy bolter and storm bolter for only 24 points more?
I think its because the Rhino doesn't really do anything - and while its cheap wounds so inefficient to kill, its not exactly hard to do so.
You also have the issue that models in transports die (a single tac isn't exactly an issue, but it can add up if you are unlucky) and they can also explode scattering mortal wounds everywhere.
I mean lets say you took 3 squads of tacs in a rhino. That's over 400 points. Throw in some special weapons on those tacs and we could be at 500.
And... turn 1 they are not doing anything. Drive up pop smoke and hope not to die.
Turn 2... still not really obvious what they are doing. If still alive rhinos can move up, fire their stormbolters and charge some stuff - but really I'm not convinced orks or anyone else are overly troubled by this. Most "good" assault units have a reasonable chance of killing a rhino in a single turn - and are usually looking for a turn 1 charge all across the table, or deepstriking/teleporting anyway. MSU screens will just withdraw in exchange for a relatively token loss of firepower. While a rhino in itself isn't much, if you lose 3-4-5 in a turn that's a large chunk of your army.
You are right that 2SBs=4 bolters, but bolters are awful. 70 or so points to kill 2 guardsmen or fire warriors? Even buffed up this is a long way from good.
Razorbacks have a bit more shooting in exchange for a bit more points, but its a similar issue. Razorbacks are arguably better than tactical marines in themselves (although still vulnerable to heavy weapons) - but they don't justify taking tactical marines when you could take anything to unlock them.
Its kind of marines all over. Having poor damage output while not being especially tough or especially fast equals a poor unit.
You laid out a general strategy that doesn't conform to the opponent you're facing of the tactics you have in mind.
Rhinos:
- Allow a melee army to create target saturation and soak overwatch
- Give a ranged army blockers to prevent movement and occupy melee elements
- Put pressure on a ranged opponent
- Make your marines more effective by getting them into range sooner
Calling it out for being 70 points and only being able to kill a couple guardsmen is the wrong way to look at it. Units have value beyond points efficiency.
In a theoretical army like this - what do you shoot? The healing, hard to hit, and fast spawn or the rhinos with Chosen who will drop 24 S4 attacks rerolling hits and wounds in combat?
Meat mountain is Coven with loads of Grotesques, haems and Urien, Grots T6, 4 wounds, 4++, 6+++, 5 attacks, S6 -1ap, Wracks, T5, 4++/6+++ 3 attacks wounds on 4+ The Lootas will be dealth with via Ravagers and RWJF
Yeah, I've done several playtesing about Drukhari (similar to Meat mountain but with raiders and talos instead of wracks, 2 flyers and 10 grots) vs green tide orks with 25 lootas and 18 CPs, always win with my orks. Wracks can be completely ignored as they're slow and even if they manage to assault they'll do nothing special. 120 boyz can deal with 20 grotesques and lootas can melt 3+ vehicles in a single turn of shooting. 30-60 boyz can deep strike and charge with 72% odds in favor. An ork warboss with proper trait and free relic can 1-shot a knight in combat for only 99 points, he'll do his contribute in assisting the boyz in melee.
If orks go first Agents of vect will be used to avoid double shooting, and it would be absolutely needed in second turn to prevent Grot Shields. It's already 8 CPs just to deal with the lootas, without preventing all their damage output.
If drukhari go first they can kill just the 10 lootas that are visible by using agents of vect, next turn those remaining 15 can have their retaliation and you'd need another agents of vect only to prevent them firing twice. In both cases you'd be out of CPs after two uses of Agents of vect.
Fielding those 20 grots is also quite unusual, only a few dudes actually own the models while this type of orks list is the flavour of the month for the ork players and is already showing up in all the competitive metas. After trying it I've shifted to another style of playing because I found that kinda boring, but it can be meta breaking. Against drukhari (without knowing the list) I'd go with 3x T8 vehicles, deep strikers and mek gunz heavy spam which is another competitive built for orks, less anti meta oriented though as there would be more appropriate targets for the anti tank.
An AM proper gunline should deal very well against drukhari too, it definitely has more firepower due to a huge amount of insanely cheap but effective units. Craftworld are also not inferior.
I know many that have 20 due to 7th formation with them and how easy they are to convert.
Ogre Army from AoS has a box of 6 for the price of 2, if you own 3 Talos you have enough to bits convert 10 of them. I bought 3 boxes of 6 (so i actually have 18, but i know many with 20+)
So far; Gman gunline, Tau castle, IG tank spam and Admech gunline has not been a problem, tho i have not fought CWE or Ynnari soup yet at all and the 2 Ork players like more friendly games so i tone it down.
Daedalus81 wrote: I'm going to have to challenge rhino nay-sayers a bit more, I suppose.
A squad of 10 tacs is 130.
A squad of 5 tacs and a rhino with 2 SB is 139.
A squad of 5 tacs and a razor with THB and SB is 154.
Let's say you expect to lose half your marines getting them into a good spot. Why *wouldn't* you just drop that half, pay 9 points more, and get a 12" move, 10 T7 wounds instead of 5 T4, and one less bolter equivalent? Or hell, a razorback with a twin heavy bolter and storm bolter for only 24 points more?
Last I knew there are few melee oriented armies that can fall back and shoot and fewer still that can flee a rhino and then charge. Orks certainly have no way to avoid being pinned by a rhino and losing a round or two of combat. Guardsmen are compartmentalized, so shooting (and charging) them (with rhinos) before they charge you makes them a whole lot weaker.
It seems people are reluctant for a few reasons: 1) rhinos are not troops and so do not help with battalions, 2) they think rhinos are too expensive, and 3) they want to transport "something worthwhile".
1) There is no helping this. It's a legitimate downside.
2) If rhinos went down 5 points you'd save 25 points for 5 of them in your list. Why does 25 points stop you?
3) Two parts here --
a) Spending a lot of points on a unit makes you want to have it outside the transport, anyway
b) Chosen and the like are decently priced now and you don't need a special weapon on every damn model.
It's because Rhinos are easily stopped from going anywhere and they don't even have firing ports like they used to. If they had firing ports I'd give them a second look. As is? There's other ways around mobility.
Cause marines are for new players and they need training wheels.
/sarcasm
Honestly, people on here are very defensive when it comes to marines vs guardsmen. If yo saw the discussions on this thread, it got heated even though we have actual math to prove that marines statistically lose to guardsmen in WPP and PPW.
People will look at data and think "That means nothing from my experiences!" Which is a common mentality among people? I've seen it here so many times it kind deflates everyone's arguments. I certainly got a bit peeved when someone said that. It became a waste of time as we know from even mathematics and from tournament listings... People don't bring marines in. Even in soup lists.
Marines are terrible and will continue to be terrible until they are overhauled. SAying they don't need one is living outside of the reality of the tournament scene. just because 1 character that is a space marine shows up at an ITC for 1 list does not mean "marines are great!"
While even from my own personal experiences I've not played a marine player in months. no one wants to play them, no one has fun playing them. Players will drop them not because they don't look cool but because they are so poorly optimized for this edition. Points Costs, and stats, in general, would help marines. Taking them as 'normal' line infantry only makes sense if you can take them in numbers. But you can't there is no point to take a full squad of marines because they are far too expensive to be considered valuable. You can take 1 additional combi weapon compared to a guardsmen squad but thats not why people run guardsmen, guardsmen are run for CHEAP CP and the bonuses they get from knights.
This edition is a mess due to the over prevelance of super heavies. Honestly just ban super heavies from tournaments and matched play and most complaints would disappiate but marines still suffer from fighting in close combat where they are undoubtedly the weakest apart from tau who are supposed to be bad...
Except that people are disagreeing with your math and the conclusions you draw from it.
No one is claiming marines are strong. People are showing that your conclusions are off and your fixes are problematic, barring a minor change in points.
The main reason you don't see them in tournaments is because they're .01% (number is for emphasis, not accuracy) less efficient then another army book in soup.
Your issue isn't with the powerlevel of marines vs IG. Your issue is that anything no matter how crappy, costs less and is a troop choice. Of course IG make a better suicide screen and CP battery. They're cheaper. But if IG were 5 points each and WS/BS 6+ people would still take them over marines for that role.
Ultimately your issue is CP generation, the effect of soup on highly tuned tournament lists, and the fact that you apparently want your tac squads to run dick first into an entire army and win.
Bharring wrote: This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
That's literally not what's going on. At all
It really is though.
As for 3rd ed eldar. As the 6th ed chaos book showed us, having one good spam list doesn't make a top tier codex. 3rd ed eldar was all star cannons all the time.
6th edition CSM was top tier in certain aspects. Huron/Ahriman infiltrating Plague Zombies, Heldrakes, Obliterators being...okayish, Daemon Princes with Relics, Juggerlords w/ Bikers or Spawn...
The issue is how utterly garbage the codex was written, which eventually brought it down. When you only get one Juggerlord and one Mace Prince and your opponent has like 6+ Wave Serpents, what're you gonna do?
As you say. Had some good builds, but weren't close to top tier.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
Admittedly I have said "It won't be" because i haven't seen evidence of it. If anything regular marines will just be normal troops for space marine armies probably replacing scouts. (cause when was the last time they released a scout model?)
But that's still speculation with nothing behind it. Just a rumor mill that's churning between releases and over enthusiasm from people like Crimson.
You can keep telling yourself that, but the amount of times CSM appeared as even an allied detachment ALONE in 6th says otherwise.
If an army can down a knight in a turn (most competitive lists) will kill 3-4 rhinos a turn easy.
Marines already struggle with offensive output as is, devoting 10-20% of your army in units that have next to no offensive output puts the death kiss on any sort of competitive army.
Marines struggle with being able to kill knights and hordes because of the terrible profiles of our weapons. The str 6-8, ap -2-3, d2-3 multi-shot, no movement penalty band is the ideal weapon in this edition. Overcharged plasma cannons but they suffer a lot vs any type of negative to hit mods (which there are tons), is found on very fragile platforms (1 wound marines), requires you to blow yourself up to use and needs significant support units.
It's either that or spamming mortal wounds which doesn't work anymore now that orcs are a real thing. You can't screen all of your sniper scouts and dev squads with enough bodies to help against green tide. Once you get into CqC you can't screen the linchpin character units that make this build work.
Marines have outdated weapon profiles (las cannons, too many heavy weapons, bolters, melta, grav) on units with outdated toughness (t4 3+) with no strats/powers to bring the army into 8th edition. It's a 7th edition army ported (poorly) into 8th. Primaris were designed for 7th and flounder in the heavy weapon saturated battle fields of 8th. All this makes sense, given that the first wave of codexes and primaris themselves were designed in the midst of 7th before anyone had any experience with 8th.
Give all marine infantry re-roll 1s to hit and wound (get rid of stupid auras). Plamsa only 1 mortal on a natural 1. Grav gives no invlun save. Melta 2d6 damage at half range. Las cannon alt fire mode. Primaris need a FNP (hell they have extra organs). Firing ports on rhinos. New strats. New psychic powers. Melee fast primaris. Re design chaplains. Drop pods as a strat.
Points drops are not where it's at. The power armor problem is rooted in the outdated design philosophy of the marine army. The rules of 8th push certain weapon profiles, invlun saves, hordes, mortal wounds and mobility. All things which marines lack or just pay too much for (maybe not so much the invlun saves now with 2 point storm shields...). Throw in the worst army strats (which could mitigate all of those weaknesses) and you have an army that struggles against armies which have units that can take advantage of 8th edition vs one that was designed for 7th.
Daedalus81 wrote: In a theoretical army like this - what do you shoot? The healing, hard to hit, and fast spawn or the rhinos with Chosen who will drop 24 S4 attacks rerolling hits and wounds in combat?
Spoiler:
Its an interesting list - but forgive my ignorance of chaos - I am not seeing any long range firepower, much that can deal with vehicles, or really pose much in the way of a threat in the first turn outside of a warp-timed unit of Spawn or the Prince.
If you go first I can therefore see it being interesting, as you would be approaching my lines for a combined turn 2 charge and yes - I have to make a choice on shooting the -1 to hit spawn, or the rhinos.
If I go first however I feel I have a good chance over two turns to kill the rhinos, spawn and put a lot of fire into the chosen. Leaving you with some characters and cultists to face pretty much my entire army. Third turn and there on I am therefore just mopping up.
Also not being able to charge after disembarking from Rhino is really punishing for the marines, especially because they need the Rhinos and they don't even have that good melee power. But then we are reminded that there are Khorne Berserkers who can fight 2-3 times and get extra attack after for Fight Phase if they are WE so end result is atleast for CSM the Rhino cannot be allowed to be too cheap or to allow charging after disembarking because Khorne Berserkers exist.
You can charge after disembarking. You just can't disembark after moving.
Daedalus81 wrote: In a theoretical army like this - what do you shoot? The healing, hard to hit, and fast spawn or the rhinos with Chosen who will drop 24 S4 attacks rerolling hits and wounds in combat?
Spoiler:
Its an interesting list - but forgive my ignorance of chaos - I am not seeing any long range firepower, much that can deal with vehicles, or really pose much in the way of a threat in the first turn outside of a warp-timed unit of Spawn or the Prince.
If you go first I can therefore see it being interesting, as you would be approaching my lines for a combined turn 2 charge and yes - I have to make a choice on shooting the -1 to hit spawn, or the rhinos.
If I go first however I feel I have a good chance over two turns to kill the rhinos, spawn and put a lot of fire into the chosen. Leaving you with some characters and cultists to face pretty much my entire army. Third turn and there on I am therefore just mopping up.
It's a heavy melee army. There's room for fists and other elements - I'm just highlighting a dynamic.
Spawn are D6 S5 AP2 D2. Tzeentch lets you pick a mutation and reroll the number of attacks, so, 5 of them 4.5 S5 AP2 D2 with reroll wounds and +1 to hit results in a dead Predator.
There is also Abaddon (who with the Exalted can kill a Predator on his own) and the DP. And lastly, just swarming attacks with VotLW and reroll wounds.
I think you're vastly overestimating the chance of killing a Rhino. A Helverin does 2.7 wounds to a rhino under cover on turn 1 and 3 to a rhino with -1 to hit. You would need 3 to 4 Helverins per Rhino for the first two turns to kill all of them as described. Obviously more extreme anti-tank is helpful, but getting overkilled by a volcano cannon isn't super concerning. And then there are still spawn kicking around.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
GW could have done two different things with Primaris that wouldn't have annoyed existing Marine players: release them as a stand-alone army, or do exactly what AlmightyWalrus suggested. Either would have cheesed off the xenos players ("Why does Imperium need yet another army to add to the soup?" vs "Why do marines get a new model range when [faction x] is still using models from [number] years ago?"), but at least Marine players wouldn't be stressing over whether their existing units would eventually be phased out.
I'm on the fence about which I would have preferred.
Cause marines are for new players and they need training wheels.
/sarcasm
Honestly, people on here are very defensive when it comes to marines vs guardsmen. If yo saw the discussions on this thread, it got heated even though we have actual math to prove that marines statistically lose to guardsmen in WPP and PPW.
People will look at data and think "That means nothing from my experiences!" Which is a common mentality among people? I've seen it here so many times it kind deflates everyone's arguments. I certainly got a bit peeved when someone said that. It became a waste of time as we know from even mathematics and from tournament listings... People don't bring marines in. Even in soup lists.
Marines are terrible and will continue to be terrible until they are overhauled. SAying they don't need one is living outside of the reality of the tournament scene. just because 1 character that is a space marine shows up at an ITC for 1 list does not mean "marines are great!"
While even from my own personal experiences I've not played a marine player in months. no one wants to play them, no one has fun playing them. Players will drop them not because they don't look cool but because they are so poorly optimized for this edition. Points Costs, and stats, in general, would help marines. Taking them as 'normal' line infantry only makes sense if you can take them in numbers. But you can't there is no point to take a full squad of marines because they are far too expensive to be considered valuable. You can take 1 additional combi weapon compared to a guardsmen squad but thats not why people run guardsmen, guardsmen are run for CHEAP CP and the bonuses they get from knights.
This edition is a mess due to the over prevelance of super heavies. Honestly just ban super heavies from tournaments and matched play and most complaints would disappiate but marines still suffer from fighting in close combat where they are undoubtedly the weakest apart from tau who are supposed to be bad...
Except that people are disagreeing with your math and the conclusions you draw from it.
No one is claiming marines are strong. People are showing that your conclusions are off and your fixes are problematic, barring a minor change in points.
The main reason you don't see them in tournaments is because they're .01% (number is for emphasis, not accuracy) less efficient then another army book in soup.
Your issue isn't with the powerlevel of marines vs IG. Your issue is that anything no matter how crappy, costs less and is a troop choice. Of course IG make a better suicide screen and CP battery. They're cheaper. But if IG were 5 points each and WS/BS 6+ people would still take them over marines for that role.
Ultimately your issue is CP generation, the effect of soup on highly tuned tournament lists, and the fact that you apparently want your tac squads to run dick first into an entire army and win.
Bharring wrote: This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
That's literally not what's going on. At all
It really is though.
As for 3rd ed eldar. As the 6th ed chaos book showed us, having one good spam list doesn't make a top tier codex. 3rd ed eldar was all star cannons all the time.
6th edition CSM was top tier in certain aspects. Huron/Ahriman infiltrating Plague Zombies, Heldrakes, Obliterators being...okayish, Daemon Princes with Relics, Juggerlords w/ Bikers or Spawn...
The issue is how utterly garbage the codex was written, which eventually brought it down. When you only get one Juggerlord and one Mace Prince and your opponent has like 6+ Wave Serpents, what're you gonna do?
As you say. Had some good builds, but weren't close to top tier.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
Admittedly I have said "It won't be" because i haven't seen evidence of it. If anything regular marines will just be normal troops for space marine armies probably replacing scouts. (cause when was the last time they released a scout model?)
But that's still speculation with nothing behind it. Just a rumor mill that's churning between releases and over enthusiasm from people like Crimson.
You can keep telling yourself that, but the amount of times CSM appeared as even an allied detachment ALONE in 6th says otherwise.
Wait, are you saying everyone took them as an ally, or no one did? I don't remember reading about, or seeing large numbers of Chaos marines in 6th. Please clarify your post?
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
GW could have done two different things with Primaris that wouldn't have annoyed existing Marine players: release them as a stand-alone army, or do exactly what AlmightyWalrus suggested. Either would have cheesed off the xenos players ("Why does Imperium need yet another army to add to the soup?" vs "Why do marines get a new model range when [faction x] is still using models from [number] years ago?"), but at least Marine players wouldn't be stressing over whether their existing units would eventually be phased out.
I'm on the fence about which I would have preferred.
And what would you say to the space marine players that hate both options?
Cause marines are for new players and they need training wheels.
/sarcasm
Honestly, people on here are very defensive when it comes to marines vs guardsmen. If yo saw the discussions on this thread, it got heated even though we have actual math to prove that marines statistically lose to guardsmen in WPP and PPW.
People will look at data and think "That means nothing from my experiences!" Which is a common mentality among people? I've seen it here so many times it kind deflates everyone's arguments. I certainly got a bit peeved when someone said that. It became a waste of time as we know from even mathematics and from tournament listings... People don't bring marines in. Even in soup lists.
Marines are terrible and will continue to be terrible until they are overhauled. SAying they don't need one is living outside of the reality of the tournament scene. just because 1 character that is a space marine shows up at an ITC for 1 list does not mean "marines are great!"
While even from my own personal experiences I've not played a marine player in months. no one wants to play them, no one has fun playing them. Players will drop them not because they don't look cool but because they are so poorly optimized for this edition. Points Costs, and stats, in general, would help marines. Taking them as 'normal' line infantry only makes sense if you can take them in numbers. But you can't there is no point to take a full squad of marines because they are far too expensive to be considered valuable. You can take 1 additional combi weapon compared to a guardsmen squad but thats not why people run guardsmen, guardsmen are run for CHEAP CP and the bonuses they get from knights.
This edition is a mess due to the over prevelance of super heavies. Honestly just ban super heavies from tournaments and matched play and most complaints would disappiate but marines still suffer from fighting in close combat where they are undoubtedly the weakest apart from tau who are supposed to be bad...
Except that people are disagreeing with your math and the conclusions you draw from it.
No one is claiming marines are strong. People are showing that your conclusions are off and your fixes are problematic, barring a minor change in points.
The main reason you don't see them in tournaments is because they're .01% (number is for emphasis, not accuracy) less efficient then another army book in soup.
Your issue isn't with the powerlevel of marines vs IG. Your issue is that anything no matter how crappy, costs less and is a troop choice. Of course IG make a better suicide screen and CP battery. They're cheaper. But if IG were 5 points each and WS/BS 6+ people would still take them over marines for that role.
Ultimately your issue is CP generation, the effect of soup on highly tuned tournament lists, and the fact that you apparently want your tac squads to run dick first into an entire army and win.
Bharring wrote: This is what I find hilarious:
-IG were bad for several editions. 8E hit, now they're top tier. GG OPIG GAME IS BAD.
-DE were bad for several editions. 8E hit, they're still terrible. 8E codex hits, now they're OP. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD.
-Marines were top tier at several points in 7E, and for a brief period of time in 8E. Now they're bad. GG OP ELDAR GAME IS BAD MARINES ALWAYS SUCK.
That's literally not what's going on. At all
It really is though.
As for 3rd ed eldar. As the 6th ed chaos book showed us, having one good spam list doesn't make a top tier codex. 3rd ed eldar was all star cannons all the time.
6th edition CSM was top tier in certain aspects. Huron/Ahriman infiltrating Plague Zombies, Heldrakes, Obliterators being...okayish, Daemon Princes with Relics, Juggerlords w/ Bikers or Spawn...
The issue is how utterly garbage the codex was written, which eventually brought it down. When you only get one Juggerlord and one Mace Prince and your opponent has like 6+ Wave Serpents, what're you gonna do?
As you say. Had some good builds, but weren't close to top tier.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
Admittedly I have said "It won't be" because i haven't seen evidence of it. If anything regular marines will just be normal troops for space marine armies probably replacing scouts. (cause when was the last time they released a scout model?)
But that's still speculation with nothing behind it. Just a rumor mill that's churning between releases and over enthusiasm from people like Crimson.
You can keep telling yourself that, but the amount of times CSM appeared as even an allied detachment ALONE in 6th says otherwise.
Wait, are you saying everyone took them as an ally, or no one did? I don't remember reading about, or seeing large numbers of Chaos marines in 6th. Please clarify your post?
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
GW could have done two different things with Primaris that wouldn't have annoyed existing Marine players: release them as a stand-alone army, or do exactly what AlmightyWalrus suggested. Either would have cheesed off the xenos players ("Why does Imperium need yet another army to add to the soup?" vs "Why do marines get a new model range when [faction x] is still using models from [number] years ago?"), but at least Marine players wouldn't be stressing over whether their existing units would eventually be phased out.
I'm on the fence about which I would have preferred.
And what would you say to the space marine players that hate both options?
Sure, I'll clarify.
I was saying, by sheer numbers alone being just an ally, CSM offered a lot to several different armies. Being a primary detachment they were still top due to power units until 7th dropped, when everything starting escalating. After all, who needs a half functioning codex when you have just some units to use a lot of?
That's essentially what I mean when I say a poorly written codex can still be top tier.
I'm ready for the bandaid to be ripped off, Primaris everything! Drop intercessors to 15, release the other kits to finish the line then move on to other armies.
After reading the Rubicon Primaris it seems like Primaris are going to be the norm with classic marines as vets and an excuse to resculpt old resin characters or kill them off with its 38.4% survival rate.
That page seemed like a reflection of the marine community on Primaris marines
Okay, so that's GW reflecting through fiction the state of the fanbase, imo. I applaud it. It makes me sad that Calgar is Primaris now, but this is an understandable move.
fraser1191 wrote: I'm ready for the bandaid to be ripped off, Primaris everything! Drop intercessors to 15, release the other kits to finish the line then move on to other armies.
After reading the Rubicon Primaris it seems like Primaris are going to be the norm with classic marines as vets and an excuse to resculpt old resin characters or kill them off with its 38.4% survival rate.
That page seemed like a reflection of the marine community on Primaris marines
Well Pedro Kantor will probably die at the end of Vigilius.
fraser1191 wrote: I'm ready for the bandaid to be ripped off, Primaris everything! Drop intercessors to 15, release the other kits to finish the line then move on to other armies.
After reading the Rubicon Primaris it seems like Primaris are going to be the norm with classic marines as vets and an excuse to resculpt old resin characters or kill them off with its 38.4% survival rate.
That page seemed like a reflection of the marine community on Primaris marines
Well Pedro Kantor will probably die at the end of Vigilius.
I'd rather chapters with only one character model not die. I'm not gonna lose any sleep if Sgt. Chronus dies and fingers crossed that if they kill off sicarius they write in captain Titus as his successor
fraser1191 wrote: I'm ready for the bandaid to be ripped off, Primaris everything! Drop intercessors to 15, release the other kits to finish the line then move on to other armies.
After reading the Rubicon Primaris it seems like Primaris are going to be the norm with classic marines as vets and an excuse to resculpt old resin characters or kill them off with its 38.4% survival rate.
That page seemed like a reflection of the marine community on Primaris marines
Well Pedro Kantor will probably die at the end of Vigilius.
I'd rather chapters with only one character model not die. I'm not gonna lose any sleep if Sgt. Chronus dies and fingers crossed that if they kill off sicarius they write in captain Titus as his successor
fraser1191 wrote: I'm ready for the bandaid to be ripped off, Primaris everything! Drop intercessors to 15, release the other kits to finish the line then move on to other armies.
After reading the Rubicon Primaris it seems like Primaris are going to be the norm with classic marines as vets and an excuse to resculpt old resin characters or kill them off with its 38.4% survival rate.
That page seemed like a reflection of the marine community on Primaris marines
Well Pedro Kantor will probably die at the end of Vigilius.
I'd rather chapters with only one character model not die. I'm not gonna lose any sleep if Sgt. Chronus dies and fingers crossed that if they kill off sicarius they write in captain Titus as his successor
It would be great if Sicarius stayed a normal marine, out of pride.
fraser1191 wrote: I'm ready for the bandaid to be ripped off, Primaris everything! Drop intercessors to 15, release the other kits to finish the line then move on to other armies.
After reading the Rubicon Primaris it seems like Primaris are going to be the norm with classic marines as vets and an excuse to resculpt old resin characters or kill them off with its 38.4% survival rate.
That page seemed like a reflection of the marine community on Primaris marines
Well Pedro Kantor will probably die at the end of Vigilius.
I'd rather chapters with only one character model not die. I'm not gonna lose any sleep if Sgt. Chronus dies and fingers crossed that if they kill off sicarius they write in captain Titus as his successor
It would be great if Sicarius stayed a normal marine, out of pride.
The character ark of Sicarius is of him stopping being such a jerk and learning to be a composed leader instead of a glory seeking champion. He can't make the shift to Primaris yet if at all because that story ark. He needs to learn humility.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Honestly I love Sicarius is a total glorywhore even when he's not the single best Captain ever. Not sure why bother people don't like that.
I love sicarius too, his model is why I play Ultramarines. Though I'll admit I'm kinda salty he lost his battle forged heroes ability and I doubt he'll get a new data sheet this edition.
(mostly upset about his new ability since I mostly play DE and Tau so melee is almost non existent)
I find it pretty funny how marine armour is supposedly modified to uselessness by every gun in the game but the same people claim guard armour saves have gotten so much better in the new edition.
Also I'm probably having a stroke because I agree with Peregrine's original response 100%.
MarsNZ wrote: I find it pretty funny how marine armour is supposedly modified to uselessness by every gun in the game but the same people claim guard armour saves have gotten so much better in the new edition.
Also I'm probably having a stroke because I agree with Peregrine's original response 100%.
If you don’t think too much about things, a lot comes off funny
MarsNZ wrote: I find it pretty funny how marine armour is supposedly modified to uselessness by every gun in the game but the same people claim guard armour saves have gotten so much better in the new edition.
Also I'm probably having a stroke because I agree with Peregrine's original response 100%.
How is it funny? Power Armor used to get a 3+ save against most things that are now AP-1 and AP -2, now it's a gakky 4+ or 5+ you're paying a premium from, and a 6+ is worthless and nothing to write home about. Guardsmen getting a 5+ save under the current system breaks it because guardsmen are dirt cheap and the new AP system gutted the weapons that commonly scythed them down. Before you could count on Tactical Marines, Fire Warriors, Guardians, etc just mowing down guardsmen like the dirt cheap fodder they're priced at. Now however they get 5+ saves rather consistently in infantry firefights, increased greatly in durability - all of which has not been accounted for in points. Thus the dirt cheap blob of guardsmen which previously was just screening in prior editions has suddenly become a durable meatshield that yet hovers at around the same cost. It's another example of GW's incompetence regarding point pricing and the terrible nature of the new save system in its full realization; it's not easier to calculate and it nerfs elite armies into the ground.
(Not to mention that in the case of game brevity - saves should cease to exist entirely and everything should just have a base armor/penetration value to remove the entire save phase)
MarsNZ wrote: I find it pretty funny how marine armour is supposedly modified to uselessness by every gun in the game but the same people claim guard armour saves have gotten so much better in the new edition.
Also I'm probably having a stroke because I agree with Peregrine's original response 100%.
How is it funny? Power Armor used to get a 3+ save against most things that are now AP-1 and AP -2, now it's a gakky 4+ or 5+ you're paying a premium from, and a 6+ is worthless and nothing to write home about. Guardsmen getting a 5+ save under the current system breaks it because guardsmen are dirt cheap and the new AP system gutted the weapons that commonly scythed them down. Before you could count on Tactical Marines, Fire Warriors, Guardians, etc just mowing down guardsmen like the dirt cheap fodder they're priced at. Now however they get 5+ saves rather consistently in infantry firefights, increased greatly in durability - all of which has not been accounted for in points. Thus the dirt cheap blob of guardsmen which previously was just screening in prior editions has suddenly become a durable meatshield that yet hovers at around the same cost. It's another example of GW's incompetence regarding point pricing and the terrible nature of the new save system in its full realization; it's not easier to calculate and it nerfs elite armies into the ground.
(Not to mention that in the case of game brevity - saves should cease to exist entirely and everything should just have a base armor/penetration value to remove the entire save phase)
I'd look at it from the other way round. I think it's a problem with Marine offensive capabilities. And I know thus would make marines better against other marines, too. I'm fine with that. A full squad of ten tactical marines at 12" should be able to pretty much delete ten other single wound, infantry models. If they then die to a counter punch by badly positioning or exposing themselves to crossfire etc, then I'm okay with that, too. This game is nowhere near chess but it should at least have the tactical "take and counter-take" of checkers.
AP -2 used to be AP 3 in most cases. So marines are weaker against autocannons and heavy bolters, but stronger against every AP <-1 weapon in the game.
Conversely, Guard and other 5+ armors got stronger, with AP 5 becoming AP 0, and AP -1, but with the changes to cover, weaker against everything else. And everyone loads up on the 'everything else' because that's what kills marines, and tanks.
Keep in mind 'stronger' means one in three doesn't die to bolter fire. Meanwhile, 1/3 marines now doesn't die to AP -2, where before they would have just been picked up.
Guard still fold in most situations. It just requires you actually concentrate on killing them, rather than just brushing them aside.
Also, I fail to see how the Loyal 32 is an example of guard durability, when they're taken specifically to generate CP, and then die. How many guard armies are there tanking all of the enemy fire, and preventing you from winning? Where are these magical lists? I don't see it when I play guard, or play against guard. They still die in droves if my opponent (or I) pay attention to them.
Have you considered it's not GW that's incompetent?
PSGW should be brave enough to steal the Toughness and Armour save mechanic from Kings of War. Just combine them all into a single Def stat. If an attack beats the stat you lose a wound. Cut out armour saves completely.
AP -2 used to be AP 3 in most cases. So marines are weaker against autocannons and heavy bolters, but stronger against every AP <-1 weapon in the game.
Conversely, Guard and other 5+ armors got stronger, with AP 5 becoming AP 0, and AP -1, but with the changes to cover, weaker against everything else. And everyone loads up on the 'everything else' because that's what kills marines, and tanks.
Keep in mind 'stronger' means one in three doesn't die to bolter fire. Meanwhile, 1/3 marines now doesn't die to AP -2, where before they would have just been picked up.
Guard still fold in most situations. It just requires you actually concentrate on killing them, rather than just brushing them aside.
Also, I fail to see how the Loyal 32 is an example of guard durability, when they're taken specifically to generate CP, and then die. How many guard armies are there tanking all of the enemy fire, and preventing you from winning? Where are these magical lists? I don't see it when I play guard, or play against guard. They still die in droves if my opponent (or I) pay attention to them.
Have you considered it's not GW that's incompetent?
GW is grossly incompetent seeing as the game has been for every single edition, never having balance, and the game designers themselves having no interest in balance on account of greed. Previously guard used to suck arse, now it's just elite armies this edition, although elite armies have never truly been "elite" in 40k. For a proper GW game with elite being "elite" you'd need to play bloody Epic.
And you also need to cease engaging in strawmanning, I never said that they were tanking all enemy fire, merely a vastly more effective meatshield able to screen fire for a guard force. As the core issue remains that for 100 points, 100 points of marine is fething garbage compared to 100 points of guard. For 100 points of guard I can get two barebones guardsmen with lasguns and a commander compared to a single tactical squad with a cheap weapon thrown on. With Armageddon Guardsmen fighting Imperial Fists, Ultramarines, etc, the guardsmen always win. The sheer low cost of both the guard squads and the order tax is simply completely superior to all base marine infantry. A guard army can comparatively throw just a few points on infantry (even in a casual game) to get a relatively strong spine of troops. Meanwhile an Astartes army needs to spend more points on troops to simply get close to even in sheer firepower. And this ties back into what I've repeated multiple times now - Astartes are suffering right now because 40k is categorically a terribly designed game. Even if some buff comes that makes marines useful at all (it'll be a long time spent crossing those fingers) it just means that another faction is going to be on the bottom of the pyramid.
AP -2 used to be AP 3 in most cases. So marines are weaker against autocannons and heavy bolters, but stronger against every AP <-1 weapon in the game.
Conversely, Guard and other 5+ armors got stronger, with AP 5 becoming AP 0, and AP -1, but with the changes to cover, weaker against everything else. And everyone loads up on the 'everything else' because that's what kills marines, and tanks.
Keep in mind 'stronger' means one in three doesn't die to bolter fire. Meanwhile, 1/3 marines now doesn't die to AP -2, where before they would have just been picked up.
Guard still fold in most situations. It just requires you actually concentrate on killing them, rather than just brushing them aside.
Also, I fail to see how the Loyal 32 is an example of guard durability, when they're taken specifically to generate CP, and then die. How many guard armies are there tanking all of the enemy fire, and preventing you from winning? Where are these magical lists? I don't see it when I play guard, or play against guard. They still die in droves if my opponent (or I) pay attention to them.
Have you considered it's not GW that's incompetent?
A 6+ sv is not really a save, the chance of passing it doesn't matter unless your dudes run around in 200 man sized battle groups. Also that is what makes IG so good. They got better vs stuff they were weak any way, and having a few guys fold is a non issue when they cost 4pts.
And the 32 are durable for the points they cost and for what they are suppose to do. If without them a knight list won't work, and with them it gets an extra turn of shoting vs something that could engage it in melee, then it doesn't matter if it dies at the end of them. Specially if the end with the 32 users win.
MarsNZ wrote: I find it pretty funny how marine armour is supposedly modified to uselessness by every gun in the game but the same people claim guard armour saves have gotten so much better in the new edition.
Also I'm probably having a stroke because I agree with Peregrine's original response 100%.
How is it funny? Power Armor used to get a 3+ save against most things that are now AP-1 and AP -2, now it's a gakky 4+ or 5+ you're paying a premium from, and a 6+ is worthless and nothing to write home about. Guardsmen getting a 5+ save under the current system breaks it because guardsmen are dirt cheap and the new AP system gutted the weapons that commonly scythed them down. Before you could count on Tactical Marines, Fire Warriors, Guardians, etc just mowing down guardsmen like the dirt cheap fodder they're priced at. Now however they get 5+ saves rather consistently in infantry firefights, increased greatly in durability - all of which has not been accounted for in points. Thus the dirt cheap blob of guardsmen which previously was just screening in prior editions has suddenly become a durable meatshield that yet hovers at around the same cost. It's another example of GW's incompetence regarding point pricing and the terrible nature of the new save system in its full realization; it's not easier to calculate and it nerfs elite armies into the ground.
(Not to mention that in the case of game brevity - saves should cease to exist entirely and everything should just have a base armor/penetration value to remove the entire save phase)
Hey if you're too obsessed with your super space fantasy men to see a blatant contradiction I dunno what to tell you. You're talking about the same guns in both your examples. Apparently all these -1 weapons just don't see use against guard because somehow we consistently get 5+ but you always lose your 3+. That's what's funny. You might think you've got a direct line to GW point calculation team but I'll need a citation before I buy anything you're saying about what has/hasn't been accounted for. I will admit your claim of guardsmen breaking the game by moving from a `screening` to `meatshield` role did add a little more humour to the original point.
A more salient point would be the new S vs T interactions favouring lower T models with inferior weapons but that would detract from the armour based meltdown in the OP and would make far too much sense for the daily marine fangirl tantrum.
AP -2 used to be AP 3 in most cases. So marines are weaker against autocannons and heavy bolters, but stronger against every AP <-1 weapon in the game.
Conversely, Guard and other 5+ armors got stronger, with AP 5 becoming AP 0, and AP -1, but with the changes to cover, weaker against everything else. And everyone loads up on the 'everything else' because that's what kills marines, and tanks.
Keep in mind 'stronger' means one in three doesn't die to bolter fire. Meanwhile, 1/3 marines now doesn't die to AP -2, where before they would have just been picked up.
Guard still fold in most situations. It just requires you actually concentrate on killing them, rather than just brushing them aside.
Also, I fail to see how the Loyal 32 is an example of guard durability, when they're taken specifically to generate CP, and then die. How many guard armies are there tanking all of the enemy fire, and preventing you from winning? Where are these magical lists? I don't see it when I play guard, or play against guard. They still die in droves if my opponent (or I) pay attention to them.
Have you considered it's not GW that's incompetent?
GW is grossly incompetent seeing as the game has been for every single edition, never having balance, and the game designers themselves having no interest in balance on account of greed. Previously guard used to suck arse, now it's just elite armies this edition, although elite armies have never truly been "elite" in 40k. For a proper GW game with elite being "elite" you'd need to play bloody Epic.
And you also need to cease engaging in strawmanning, I never said that they were tanking all enemy fire, merely a vastly more effective meatshield able to screen fire for a guard force. As the core issue remains that for 100 points, 100 points of marine is fething garbage compared to 100 points of guard. For 100 points of guard I can get two barebones guardsmen with lasguns and a commander compared to a single tactical squad with a cheap weapon thrown on. With Armageddon Guardsmen fighting Imperial Fists, Ultramarines, etc, the guardsmen always win. The sheer low cost of both the guard squads and the order tax is simply completely superior to all base marine infantry. A guard army can comparatively throw just a few points on infantry (even in a casual game) to get a relatively strong spine of troops. Meanwhile an Astartes army needs to spend more points on troops to simply get close to even in sheer firepower. And this ties back into what I've repeated multiple times now - Astartes are suffering right now because 40k is categorically a terribly designed game. Even if some buff comes that makes marines useful at all (it'll be a long time spent crossing those fingers) it just means that another faction is going to be on the bottom of the pyramid.
I'm only taking your arguments to their logical conclusions. You say screen for fire, but that's really not an argument seeing as they don't block line of sight. They only prevent charging, and funnel deep strikers. Their fire power is less then a Tactical squad, and less accurate. Yes their cheaper, but they don't have that ability to save against plasma or BC's that marines do. They also shoot worse and with a weaker base weapon. A weapon they're obliged to take seven of, compared to a marine squad's 3-7.
Great, you can buy 20 guys and an officer. Ok, how do they do against raven's guard? If you're going to cherry pick the best for the 'fight' so does the SM player. Those five space marines just outkilled them by quite a bit.
If what you say about orders is true, how come we only see the Loyal 32? Why don't we see entire brigades of IG? We don't.
Have you considered that a Tactical squad's job isn't masacreing IG? How about using a land speeder squadron, or a dreadnaught, or an agressor squad, or a dakka pred? A tactical squad is there to tank hits on an objective, and add fire power to other squads, not run dick first into another army and kill everything.
Astartes are suffering because everyone who runs them thinks they should be unkillable supermen, and not what they're described as. A Tactical unit.
MarsNZ wrote: I find it pretty funny how marine armour is supposedly modified to uselessness by every gun in the game but the same people claim guard armour saves have gotten so much better in the new edition.
Also I'm probably having a stroke because I agree with Peregrine's original response 100%.
How is it funny? Power Armor used to get a 3+ save against most things that are now AP-1 and AP -2, now it's a gakky 4+ or 5+ you're paying a premium from, and a 6+ is worthless and nothing to write home about. Guardsmen getting a 5+ save under the current system breaks it because guardsmen are dirt cheap and the new AP system gutted the weapons that commonly scythed them down. Before you could count on Tactical Marines, Fire Warriors, Guardians, etc just mowing down guardsmen like the dirt cheap fodder they're priced at. Now however they get 5+ saves rather consistently in infantry firefights, increased greatly in durability - all of which has not been accounted for in points. Thus the dirt cheap blob of guardsmen which previously was just screening in prior editions has suddenly become a durable meatshield that yet hovers at around the same cost. It's another example of GW's incompetence regarding point pricing and the terrible nature of the new save system in its full realization; it's not easier to calculate and it nerfs elite armies into the ground.
(Not to mention that in the case of game brevity - saves should cease to exist entirely and everything should just have a base armor/penetration value to remove the entire save phase)
Hey if you're too obsessed with your super space fantasy men to see a blatant contradiction I dunno what to tell you. You're talking about the same guns in both your examples. Apparently all these -1 weapons just don't see use against guard because somehow we consistently get 5+ but you always lose your 3+. That's what's funny. You might think you've got a direct line to GW point calculation team but I'll need a citation before I buy anything you're saying about what has/hasn't been accounted for. I will admit your claim of guardsmen breaking the game by moving from a `screening` to `meatshield` role did add a little more humour to the original point.
A more salient point would be the new S vs T interactions favouring lower T models with inferior weapons but that would detract from the armour based meltdown in the OP and would make far too much sense for the daily marine fangirl tantrum.
No, because if you lose a guardsmen you've just lost a dirt cheap infantry unit that doesn't hurt you much at all to the first place. -1 kills more guardsmen, but guardsmen can easily tank losses of infantry with little fanfare on account of guardsmen being such a cheap and reliable unit. Lose a single tactical marine however and you've significantly lost a chunk of your firepower which is going to accelerate the loss of the squad (and thus a hefty investment of points). And it's a fairly significant jump in durability as guardsmen used to basically never get saves against anything, and now they get a full 5+ against all infantry weapons besides Necrons.
I'm only taking your arguments to their logical conclusions. You say screen for fire, but that's really not an argument seeing as they don't block line of sight. They only prevent charging, and funnel deep strikers. Their fire power is less then a Tactical squad, and less accurate. Yes their cheaper, but they don't have that ability to save against plasma or BC's that marines do. They also shoot worse and with a weaker base weapon. A weapon they're obliged to take seven of, compared to a marine squad's 3-7.
Great, you can buy 20 guys and an officer. Ok, how do they do against raven's guard? If you're going to cherry pick the best for the 'fight' so does the SM player. Those five space marines just outkilled them by quite a bit.
Getting saves against lascannons and plasma is worthless when it comes at a 13ppm premium that still barely saves any number of the squad, and if the enemy is using dedicated AT weapons against infantry in the first place that means one of three things. Either A) your armor support is completely wiped out and they're now focusing on infantry, in which case the game is almost certainly lost for you, B) your opponent is an idiot and focusing on infantry instead of armor support, or C) you're running a heavy amount of infantry in the first place, in which case you're probably losing. I'd take guardsmen over tactical squads any day because at the end of it, accuracy and weaker weapon means nothing compared to volume of fire. A lasgun with orders is utterly superior to a boltgun regardless of the strength difference, and the tactical squad only starts to get decent with their shots if they have re-rolls, which they probably don't unless they're standing still or have a captain nearby.
If what you say about orders is true, how come we only see the Loyal 32? Why don't we see entire brigades of IG? We don't.
Have you considered that a Tactical squad's job isn't masacreing IG? How about using a land speeder squadron, or a dreadnaught, or an agressor squad, or a dakka pred? A tactical squad is there to tank hits on an objective, and add fire power to other squads, not run dick first into another army and kill everything.
No, that's the tactical squad's function when your brain is on GW game design. A tactical squad is supposed to be a flexible shock infantry unit able to adequately provide anti-tank fire; but the explicit primary role of is supposed to be engaging and blasting out enemy infantry, making heavy use of drop pod assaults or rapid rhino charges. Just as guardsmen infantry aren't supposed to be pumping out so many damn shots that they can somehow manage to damage even tanks with small arms fire courtesy of the ridiculous "wound everything" BS of 8th edition. And I'm not just talking pure competitive either, but simply trying to tailor pickup lists to respectable 50/50 odds of victory without one side having a ridiculous advantage that sees one party blown off the table.
Astartes are suffering because everyone who runs them thinks they should be unkillable supermen, and not what they're described as. A Tactical unit.
Which is supposed to primarily engage enemy infantry and shoot them out. Space Marine are shock infantry, the counter to them mechanically is supposed to be heavy artillery or massed armor. Not light infantry spam that is more effective when massed. Because ultimately all "tactics" boil down to forming up mass pools of model and pushing them across with board, with things such as suppression, shock, and morale not even being truly present on the 40k level (even though epic successfully implemented these concepts and kill team features a shoddy version in the form of FW's)
MarsNZ wrote: I find it pretty funny how marine armour is supposedly modified to uselessness by every gun in the game but the same people claim guard armour saves have gotten so much better in the new edition.
Also I'm probably having a stroke because I agree with Peregrine's original response 100%.
How is it funny? Power Armor used to get a 3+ save against most things that are now AP-1 and AP -2, now it's a gakky 4+ or 5+ you're paying a premium from, and a 6+ is worthless and nothing to write home about. Guardsmen getting a 5+ save under the current system breaks it because guardsmen are dirt cheap and the new AP system gutted the weapons that commonly scythed them down. Before you could count on Tactical Marines, Fire Warriors, Guardians, etc just mowing down guardsmen like the dirt cheap fodder they're priced at. Now however they get 5+ saves rather consistently in infantry firefights, increased greatly in durability - all of which has not been accounted for in points. Thus the dirt cheap blob of guardsmen which previously was just screening in prior editions has suddenly become a durable meatshield that yet hovers at around the same cost. It's another example of GW's incompetence regarding point pricing and the terrible nature of the new save system in its full realization; it's not easier to calculate and it nerfs elite armies into the ground.
(Not to mention that in the case of game brevity - saves should cease to exist entirely and everything should just have a base armor/penetration value to remove the entire save phase)
Hey if you're too obsessed with your super space fantasy men to see a blatant contradiction I dunno what to tell you. You're talking about the same guns in both your examples. Apparently all these -1 weapons just don't see use against guard because somehow we consistently get 5+ but you always lose your 3+. That's what's funny. You might think you've got a direct line to GW point calculation team but I'll need a citation before I buy anything you're saying about what has/hasn't been accounted for. I will admit your claim of guardsmen breaking the game by moving from a `screening` to `meatshield` role did add a little more humour to the original point.
A more salient point would be the new S vs T interactions favouring lower T models with inferior weapons but that would detract from the armour based meltdown in the OP and would make far too much sense for the daily marine fangirl tantrum.
No, because if you lose a guardsmen you've just lost a dirt cheap infantry unit that doesn't hurt you much at all to the first place. -1 kills more guardsmen, but guardsmen can easily tank losses of infantry with little fanfare on account of guardsmen being such a cheap and reliable unit. Lose a single tactical marine however and you've significantly lost a chunk of your firepower which is going to accelerate the loss of the squad (and thus a hefty investment of points). And it's a fairly significant jump in durability as guardsmen used to basically never get saves against anything, and now they get a full 5+ against all infantry weapons besides Necrons.
I'm only taking your arguments to their logical conclusions. You say screen for fire, but that's really not an argument seeing as they don't block line of sight. They only prevent charging, and funnel deep strikers. Their fire power is less then a Tactical squad, and less accurate. Yes their cheaper, but they don't have that ability to save against plasma or BC's that marines do. They also shoot worse and with a weaker base weapon. A weapon they're obliged to take seven of, compared to a marine squad's 3-7.
Great, you can buy 20 guys and an officer. Ok, how do they do against raven's guard? If you're going to cherry pick the best for the 'fight' so does the SM player. Those five space marines just outkilled them by quite a bit.
Getting saves against lascannons and plasma is worthless when it comes at a 13ppm premium that still barely saves any number of the squad, and if the enemy is using dedicated AT weapons against infantry in the first place that means one of three things. Either A) your armor support is completely wiped out and they're now focusing on infantry, in which case the game is almost certainly lost for you, B) your opponent is an idiot and focusing on infantry instead of armor support, or C) you're running a heavy amount of infantry in the first place, in which case you're probably losing. I'd take guardsmen over tactical squads any day because at the end of it, accuracy and weaker weapon means nothing compared to volume of fire. A lasgun with orders is utterly superior to a boltgun regardless of the strength difference, and the tactical squad only starts to get decent with their shots if they have re-rolls, which they probably don't unless they're standing still or have a captain nearby.
If what you say about orders is true, how come we only see the Loyal 32? Why don't we see entire brigades of IG? We don't.
Have you considered that a Tactical squad's job isn't masacreing IG? How about using a land speeder squadron, or a dreadnaught, or an agressor squad, or a dakka pred? A tactical squad is there to tank hits on an objective, and add fire power to other squads, not run dick first into another army and kill everything.
No, that's the tactical squad's function when your brain is on GW game design. A tactical squad is supposed to be a flexible shock infantry unit able to adequately provide anti-tank fire; but the explicit primary role of is supposed to be engaging and blasting out enemy infantry, making heavy use of drop pod assaults or rapid rhino charges. Just as guardsmen infantry aren't supposed to be pumping out so many damn shots that they can somehow manage to damage even tanks with small arms fire courtesy of the ridiculous "wound everything" BS of 8th edition. And I'm not just talking pure competitive either, but simply trying to tailor pickup lists to respectable 50/50 odds of victory without one side having a ridiculous advantage that sees one party blown off the table.
Astartes are suffering because everyone who runs them thinks they should be unkillable supermen, and not what they're described as. A Tactical unit.
Which is supposed to primarily engage enemy infantry and shoot them out. Space Marine are shock infantry, the counter to them mechanically is supposed to be heavy artillery or massed armor. Not light infantry spam that is more effective when massed. Because ultimately all "tactics" boil down to forming up mass pools of model and pushing them across with board, with things such as suppression, shock, and morale not even being truly present on the 40k level (even though epic successfully implemented these concepts and kill team features a shoddy version in the form of FW's)
And by a significant portion, you mean a guy with a bolter.
Banville wrote:PSGW should be brave enough to steal the Toughness and Armour save mechanic from Kings of War. Just combine them all into a single Def stat. If an attack beats the stat you lose a wound. Cut out armour saves completely.
One of the primary reasons GW use armour saves and toughness as separate operations is to add depth. Or at least that's how it started anyway. One of the few design rules for the original warhammer was mandating the use of the D6, as they were so common at the time (especially among GWs target player base). The problem with the D6 is that it's a very blunt instrument compared to something like a D20, so in order to fully show the difference between elites vs regulars you need things like modifiers, but - more importantly - multiple operations. This gives you the kind of depth that in 2nd edition for example (the first "proper" 40k) sees a squad of bolter armed SM shooting at lasgun armed IG, hitting on 3s, wounding on 3s, no armour save vs the return fire of 4s, 5s, then a 3 up armour save. If they combine the toughness and armour save, you lose one of the key tools the game uses to differeniate between troops.
Now if you'll indulge me briefly in some rose tinted old school vs new school ramblings, part of the problem with GW games over the years has been the gradual proliferation of non-standard weapons and unit types, leading to the present day where we have massed alpha strikes and massed deployment rule defying deep striking, to the point where standard troops and weapons are a weird irregularity. This was one of the things that slowly killed Warhammer fantasy, as armies gradually became more and more ridiculously killy. High Elves started off as a faction that was highly skilled and quick, with decent shooting and magic, but lacked punching power and staying power. That was until the combination of white lions, swordmasters, silver helms, dragon princes, chariots and characters with strength enhancing magic items etc made it so that 90% of any high elven army had enough offensive power to comfortably scythe through most other armies core troops with ease, while their armour gave them decent damage absorption, completely turning their original army design on its head.
40k basically followed suit. Every army originally had a theory behind its design. SM were a dependable, beginner friendly army that was forgiving of mistakes, especially in the movement phase, in part because power armour was robust enough to offer a solid save even against some of the more exotic weapons that most armies could tote to the field. The ridiculous mass of high strength, armour piercing/denying firepower that now seems to accompany every 40k army has made that old advantage somewhat less useful. Armies have essentially lost their soul as modern 40k seems mainly about picking the winning combination of buffs to maximise your turn 1 firepower. Combining the armour and toughness save together is likely to just make that problem even worse.
Having three stages to resolve any attack is less of a time issue than the case of having to roll an absolute arse load of dice every time someone so much as farts on the battlefield.
Mmmpi wrote: Can't speak for Tau players, but Eldar players take Guardians. Guardian bombs are a thing.
Are they taking the guardians just for the guardians, or because the guardians are a tax for a heavy weapon platform?
They already get heavy weapons on War Walkers, wave serpents, falcons, vypers, and to a limited selection, wind riders.
People are taking them because a squad of 20 will erase squads.
The cheap option are five man dire avengers.
Ok, but this means most marines stuff is just plain bad. Because they are not cheap, and most of their units, even if one ignores the point costs, do not erase squads. The only thing marines were suppose to have, is resiliance, for which they pay a lot of points. But they are not more resilient then IG or other horde armies, in fact they are less resilient in any game that uses actual points.
Having three stages to resolve any attack is less of a time issue than the case of having to roll an absolute arse load of dice every time someone so much as farts on the battlefield.
It looks more like someone trying very hard to reliable game mechanics with random rolling for cool effects every 200 games.
Banville wrote:PSGW should be brave enough to steal the Toughness and Armour save mechanic from Kings of War. Just combine them all into a single Def stat. If an attack beats the stat you lose a wound. Cut out armour saves completely.
One of the primary reasons GW use armour saves and toughness as separate operations is to add depth. Or at least that's how it started anyway. One of the few design rules for the original warhammer was mandating the use of the D6, as they were so common at the time (especially among GWs target player base). The problem with the D6 is that it's a very blunt instrument compared to something like a D20, so in order to fully show the difference between elites vs regulars you need things like modifiers, but - more importantly - multiple operations. This gives you the kind of depth that in 2nd edition for example (the first "proper" 40k) sees a squad of bolter armed SM shooting at lasgun armed IG, hitting on 3s, wounding on 3s, no armour save vs the return fire of 4s, 5s, then a 3 up armour save. If they combine the toughness and armour save, you lose one of the key tools the game uses to differeniate between troops.
Now if you'll indulge me briefly in some rose tinted old school vs new school ramblings, part of the problem with GW games over the years has been the gradual proliferation of non-standard weapons and unit types, leading to the present day where we have massed alpha strikes and massed deployment rule defying deep striking, to the point where standard troops and weapons are a weird irregularity. This was one of the things that slowly killed Warhammer fantasy, as armies gradually became more and more ridiculously killy. High Elves started off as a faction that was highly skilled and quick, with decent shooting and magic, but lacked punching power and staying power. That was until the combination of white lions, swordmasters, silver helms, dragon princes, chariots and characters with strength enhancing magic items etc made it so that 90% of any high elven army had enough offensive power to comfortably scythe through most other armies core troops with ease, while their armour gave them decent damage absorption, completely turning their original army design on its head.
40k basically followed suit. Every army originally had a theory behind its design. SM were a dependable, beginner friendly army that was forgiving of mistakes, especially in the movement phase, in part because power armour was robust enough to offer a solid save even against some of the more exotic weapons that most armies could tote to the field. The ridiculous mass of high strength, armour piercing/denying firepower that now seems to accompany every 40k army has made that old advantage somewhat less useful. Armies have essentially lost their soul as modern 40k seems mainly about picking the winning combination of buffs to maximise your turn 1 firepower. Combining the armour and toughness save together is likely to just make that problem even worse.
Having three stages to resolve any attack is less of a time issue than the case of having to roll an absolute arse load of dice every time someone so much as farts on the battlefield
Oh, I have no problem with granular mechanics when it's a squad-level or platoon-level game. At the level 40k is pitched at nowadays, I think the KoW way is the way to go.
Mmmpi wrote: Can't speak for Tau players, but Eldar players take Guardians. Guardian bombs are a thing.
Are they taking the guardians just for the guardians, or because the guardians are a tax for a heavy weapon platform?
They already get heavy weapons on War Walkers, wave serpents, falcons, vypers, and to a limited selection, wind riders.
People are taking them because a squad of 20 will erase squads.
The cheap option are five man dire avengers.
Ok, but this means most marines stuff is just plain bad. Because they are not cheap, and most of their units, even if one ignores the point costs, do not erase squads. The only thing marines were suppose to have, is resiliance, for which they pay a lot of points. But they are not more resilient then IG or other horde armies, in fact they are less resilient in any game that uses actual points.
Except guardians arn't a cheap option. The squad is upwards of 200 points, and is horrifically vulnerable to return fire. It's also too big to fit into a transport. The cheap option are five dire avengers, which have scion saves, a crit capable bolter, and guardsman S/T. They cost almost as much as a marine at that, so it's only cheap in regards to everything else in the army. It still costs almost as much as a naked battle squad, with almost none of the upgrade options (exarch only).
Karol wrote: Ok, but this means most marines stuff is just plain bad. Because they are not cheap, and most of their units, even if one ignores the point costs, do not erase squads. The only thing marines were suppose to have, is resiliance, for which they pay a lot of points. But they are not more resilient then IG or other horde armies, in fact they are less resilient in any game that uses actual points.
I'm going to ask the obvious question here: what about Power Ratings?
Karol wrote:It looks more like someone trying very hard to reliable game mechanics with random rolling for cool effects every 200 games.
Reasonably reliable game mechanics with random rolling for cool effects is the essence of wargaming.
Banville wrote:Oh, I have no problem with granular mechanics when it's a squad-level or platoon-level game. At the level 40k is pitched at nowadays, I think the KoW way is the way to go.
It's a pretty easy mechanic even at a company level game. The problems mainly start when you introduce crazy numbers of dice and a million extra special rules.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
GW could have done two different things with Primaris that wouldn't have annoyed existing Marine players: release them as a stand-alone army, or do exactly what AlmightyWalrus suggested. Either would have cheesed off the xenos players ("Why does Imperium need yet another army to add to the soup?" vs "Why do marines get a new model range when [faction x] is still using models from [number] years ago?"), but at least Marine players wouldn't be stressing over whether their existing units would eventually be phased out.
I'm on the fence about which I would have preferred.
And what would you say to the space marine players that hate both options?
"Were you expecting the range to never get updated again? They've been through at least three different iterations of the basic Tac Marine already."
There was a time when everythingGW sold was metal; no plastic, no resin. For a while they were all combined metal-plastic kits. Nothing in the 'Nid range bigger than a Warrior has the same kit they did mid-4th edition. Outside the Kroot and a couple of tanks I think every single thing in the Tau range has been replaced since the initial release. It's not just kits either; Necrons used to make all you wargear stop working when they got close to you. Nids used to have re-spawning troop choices as a base army rule. Expecting a range to never get an update or a significant re-write is just unrealistic.
I don't get why you'd hate Primaris just getting released as a new army though. GW releases new forces on a pretty regular basis.
GW could have done two different things with Primaris that wouldn't have annoyed existing Marine players: release them as a stand-alone army, or do exactly what AlmightyWalrus suggested. Either would have cheesed off the xenos players ("Why does Imperium need yet another army to add to the soup?" vs "Why do marines get a new model range when [faction x] is still using models from [number] years ago?"), but at least Marine players wouldn't be stressing over whether their existing units would eventually be phased out.
Its not just Xenos players - its ALL the non marine factions (Imperial and otherwise) that have to compete for the design and production resources that is not already dedicated to the myriad of Marine variants.
The Marine line is (baring new units) more than complete with a massive range which was the major problem with GW - they had to resort to every more oulandish and downright stupid things like Santa Logan and Centurions.
GW did have a problem - if they just update the rules and most people would simply use thier old models. I am not sure they could have done better.
Karol wrote: Ok, but this means most marines stuff is just plain bad. Because they are not cheap, and most of their units, even if one ignores the point costs, do not erase squads. The only thing marines were suppose to have, is resiliance, for which they pay a lot of points. But they are not more resilient then IG or other horde armies, in fact they are less resilient in any game that uses actual points.
I'm going to ask the obvious question here: what about Power Ratings?
basically the same issue, even with PL in stead of points the same Power rating buys you a lot more wounds of anything else, and those wounds, even if only rolling single attacks come out ahead by virtue of more models == more dice.
if we had a system where you could no longer fire over your own units, or through your own unit model by model, then marines being better individually would matter - but at the moment you just want to generate attack dice and have enough bodies that each incoming round dilutes your firepower in percentage terms as little as possible.
Marines need a decent cover system to survive and a decent line of fire system to optimise what they can do, its essentially the problem terminators have had for some time now hitting the rank and file marine.
if for the cost of one marine, who rolls one dice in close combat and two at range, but is removed by one wound you can have three guardsmen, who roll three dice in close combat, six at range, even weaker dice, but take three wounds to remove in a system where the marine has no way to actually be "power focused at a point" then marine has no way to square that.
Marines need to either cost not a lot more than IG, maybe 8-9 points each for basic troops (special weapons guys more as they can do more) to represent how they are not that much more survivable, or the core mechanics need adapting to put a few bottlenecks in the game where the individually superior nature of the marine can be brought to bear.
e.g. who cares how many IG you have, if one one can fire then one marine is worth significantly more, if the lot of the IG can fire why bother with the marine?
GW could have done two different things with Primaris that wouldn't have annoyed existing Marine players: release them as a stand-alone army, or do exactly what AlmightyWalrus suggested. Either would have cheesed off the xenos players ("Why does Imperium need yet another army to add to the soup?" vs "Why do marines get a new model range when [faction x] is still using models from [number] years ago?"), but at least Marine players wouldn't be stressing over whether their existing units would eventually be phased out.
Its not just Xenos players - its ALL the non marine factions (Imperial and otherwise) that have to compete for the design and production resources that is not already dedicated to the myriad of Marine variants.
The Marine line is (baring new units) more than complete with a massive range which was the major problem with GW - they had to resort to every more oulandish and downright stupid things like Santa Logan and Centurions.
GW did have a problem - if they just update the rules and most people would simply use thier old models. I am not sure they could have done better.
Centurions are awsome, I make no apologies for loving that kit. I take your point about non-marine Imperial players though.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
GW could have done two different things with Primaris that wouldn't have annoyed existing Marine players: release them as a stand-alone army, or do exactly what AlmightyWalrus suggested. Either would have cheesed off the xenos players ("Why does Imperium need yet another army to add to the soup?" vs "Why do marines get a new model range when [faction x] is still using models from [number] years ago?"), but at least Marine players wouldn't be stressing over whether their existing units would eventually be phased out.
I'm on the fence about which I would have preferred.
And what would you say to the space marine players that hate both options?
"Were you expecting the range to never get updated again? They've been through at least three different iterations of the basic Tac Marine already."
There was a time when everythingGW sold was metal; no plastic, no resin. For a while they were all combined metal-plastic kits. Nothing in the 'Nid range bigger than a Warrior has the same kit they did mid-4th edition. Outside the Kroot and a couple of tanks I think every single thing in the Tau range has been replaced since the initial release. It's not just kits either; Necrons used to make all you wargear stop working when they got close to you. Nids used to have re-spawning troop choices as a base army rule. Expecting a range to never get an update or a significant re-write is just unrealistic.
I don't get why you'd hate Primaris just getting released as a new army though. GW releases new forces on a pretty regular basis.
Because it takes resources away from literally everything else. Fewer marine updates, fewer updates for eldar, for tau, for guard, for sisters, for necrons, for orks.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Insectum7 wrote: Like Grav does multiple wounds to models with 3+ or better armor, make Flamers do more hits against units with 5+ or worse armor.
Example: Imagine Flamers doing 1D6 +3 hits against models with a save of 5+ or worse.
Though AP is a big change in 8th edition, the change to the horde clearing capacity of template weapons is another huge factor.
Yeah, the flamer nerf is still being felt. It went from a near point blank weapon that could hit 5+ models, to one that struggled to hit more than 3. And is still over costed to boot.
There have been a number of "What should the flamer be" threads in Proposed Rules. It's fun to discuss.
(My personal favorite is former-templates become 2d6 hits, may not generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.)
The Marine itself isn't so bad historically. The only book that's been on top more than the Marine book is the CWE book, but compare what Marines have been good for to what any individual CWE troop choice has been good for since 6E hit:
Marines:
-ObSec spam
-Gladius
-Limited use in Gman lists in 8th
vs
Rangers:
-Only good in the 8E Codex, and then just for 12ppm screens/chaff
Storm Guardians:
-Ranged from absolute dumpster fire garbage to just plain bad.
Guardian Defenders:
-Limited 'Guardian Blobs' for month or two after the 6E CWE book hit
-Guardian Bombs in 8E since the codex hit
Dire Avengers:
-DAVU (which is to say, unlocking Serpents)
Windriders:
-Scatter Bikes
Comparing Tacs to CWE troops as a whole, you see CWE has had better luck in the Troop department. But only because they have more *options*. No one CWE troop has been viable more than Tac Marines since 6E hit.
Marines have trouble right now, but it's weird to say that it's because Power Armor is overcosted, when you look at all the "Power Armor" OP gak that's out there right now. It's clear that Marines are more an outlier than standard bearer for the balance of 3+ saves.
Bharring wrote: Rangers:
-Only good in the 8E Codex, and then just for 12ppm screens/chaff
They were pretty handy in earlier editions where you just wanted your troops to hunker down under a 2+ cover save and hold an objective at all costs, and there was the somewhat infamous ranger disruption table... (take that unit off the board, and that one, and that one, and that one is pinned, and this one comes in half way through the game at this specific location, and this one loses 5 models and is pinned... ok - going to start my turn now).
The "Go to Ground in cover" was done by Sniper Scouts just about as well, for about the same points. There were tradeoffs between the two units, but they both did that job reasonably. Neither were amazing at it, though.
The Ranger Disruption table was much further back, I was only looking at the last few. We could also talk about Metal Bawkses and everything else from 1st through 5th, and I'm not sure how it'd shake out. I stuck to the last couple editions because I felt I could do them justice.
Frontline989 wrote: Ive started a mainly primaris army just because I like the new models. I feel like people would have bought primaris without any rules justification.
This. If GW had just rescaled marines as they have done in the past, I would have been all in. Instead they butchered the fluff and pretty much signaled to the every marine player that in a few years the army they collected over the years will be wiped away and forgotten about. Over all they learned a bit from the rocky start for AOS but not enough.
Frontline989 wrote: Ive started a mainly primaris army just because I like the new models. I feel like people would have bought primaris without any rules justification.
This. If GW had just rescaled marines as they have done in the past, I would have been all in. Instead they butchered the fluff and pretty much signaled to the every marine player that in a few years the army they collected over the years will be wiped away and forgotten about. Over all they learned a bit from the rocky start for AOS but not enough.
Once again, first part is purely your opinion, second part is making up a scenario you cannot prove but hold onto anyway for whatever reason.
The first part is clearly labeled as his opinion (figuratively, because literally it's technically a predictive statement of fact, not an opinion).
The second part can't be proven any more - or less - than any other theories out there. It's heavily backed by "What's past is prologue". A fallacy in formal proofs, but a very strong piece of evidence when suggesting possible futures.
Automatically Appended Next Post: (Also, +1 to both parts of Hound's post.)
Frontline989 wrote: Ive started a mainly primaris army just because I like the new models. I feel like people would have bought primaris without any rules justification.
Or just done it with just the new weapons - ah well here we are.
I wish these threads were most honestly named - ie rather than "power armour" its (always) "marine".
Marines MUST be a mid tier punching bag. MUST BE. Its the cornerstone of GW's business model. Marines are the most popular army. If they were the most powerful there would be no 40k. It would just be Marine-k. Decades ago eldar and ork players would have learned that they couldn't win, and would have stopped buying miniatures.
So...space marine players...take one for the team. Or all you'll be able to do is reenact the horus heresy.
Mmmpi wrote: Astartes are suffering because everyone who runs them thinks they should be unkillable supermen, and not what they're described as. A Tactical unit.
So the literally hundreds of thousands of people who have Tactical Marines are just stupid and playing them wrong? There’s nothing wrong with the unit at all, it’s just that everyone everywhere don’t share your genius and run Tacticals the ‘right’ way?
...does it even compute to you that there’s a remote possibility that you might be wrong? That just maybe if the entire world is saying one thing and you’re saying the opposite there’s an outside chance you haven’t outwitted everybody? I’m sure you’ll just say something like ‘all Marine players are whiners that moan even when they have the best Codex’ or some other inane generalistic excuse to avoid admitting you aren’t right all the time everywhere always.
I think the change to the AP system is a red herring. It largely hasn’t changed the world for Marines’ durability, though it has changed their relative durability since what used to be light infantry got a good boost with a Battle Cannon being the minimum to negate their save and Str5 no longer wounding them on 2s. I think their problems are more from that they went from being glass cannons in 7th Ed to glass cannons with double glass, hold the cannon in 8th. They need an improvement to each durability, firepower and cost. The Primaris Solution - giving all Marines +1W/+1A and AP-1 on all bolters/bolt pistols/storm bolters/hurricane bolters/heavy bolters/chainswords/combat knives +1AP and making your basic Tactical/Intercessor 15pts fixes the core issues in one fell swoop. All that’s left then are tweaks.
Actually there’s probably a simple way to enact the Primaris Solution. In a Chapter Approved or Big FAQ change the points, then add the two following rules:
- All Adeptus Astartes and Heretic Astartes Infantry and Bikers without the Primaris keyword gain +1 Wound, +1 Attack and treat all weapons as having their AP improved by 1.
- All Primaris units lose the Primaris keyword, and hence can embark on Transports that prohibit Primaris units. Mk X Gravis models take the place of two models in Transports.
Fluff justification is that it’s far enough along now that every Marine (or near enough to every that it doesn’t matter) has now either died or undergone the Rubicon process.
kombatwombat wrote: Actually there’s probably a simple way to enact the Primaris Solution. In a Chapter Approved or Big FAQ change the points, then add the two following rules:
- All Adeptus Astartes and Heretic Astartes Infantry and Bikers without the Primaris keyword gain +1 Wound, +1 Attack and treat all weapons as having their AP improved by 1.
- All Primaris units lose the Primaris keyword, and hence can embark on Transports that prohibit Primaris units. Mk X Gravis models take the place of two models in Transports.
Fluff justification is that it’s far enough along now that every Marine (or near enough to every that it doesn’t matter) has now either died or undergone the Rubicon process.
Honestly I'm fine with Primaris and Mini Marines being separated. You choose either more deadly loadouts or greater durability and combat ability. The issue, as always, is the balance not being correct. Intercessors are actually okay at 17 (and I wouldn't blink at them being 16), but Tactical Marines have always lacked bite due to Bolters never being good at the minimum price point for them and the silly 1 Special and 1 Heavy at ten dudes.
Sterngaurd and Vanguard are certainly a better pick at this point compared to Tactical Marines and Assault Marines, and this is due to roles being easily filled. Sternguard are just Marines +1. Vanguard are Marines +1. Company Vets are Marines +1. Company Vets on Bikes are Bikers +1. Chosen are Chaos Marines +1. And so on.
If you had greater internal balance, you can look at Aspect Warriors as at least having defined roles.
Mmmpi wrote: Astartes are suffering because everyone who runs them thinks they should be unkillable supermen, and not what they're described as. A Tactical unit.
So the literally hundreds of thousands of people who have Tactical Marines are just stupid and playing them wrong? There’s nothing wrong with the unit at all, it’s just that everyone everywhere don’t share your genius and run Tacticals the ‘right’ way?
Honestly, yeah. I've seen a lot of that over the years. With Veterans down to 14 base Tacs are now pretty tough to take, and that's an issue. But YES, people want their unkillable supermen. And many people DO play them not particularly well because they have an idea of how they should operate in their head, but they don't work that way in actuality because fiction is fiction, and game is game.
Case in point, the obsession over Tacs vs. Guardsmen, a comparison that has been done a gillion times. Often you see cries of "imbalance!" when one unit wins some math war over another. But he truth about game balance is that a single unit doesn't at all have to win over some other unit, ever, as long as there exists some other solution to the problem in their book. But the obsession is over Tacticals, and one of the reasons is because "unkillable supermen shouldn't be losing to guard."
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'm pretty sure a majority of Space Marine players would be perfectly fine with Primaris Marines replacing normal Marines rules-wise, the current problem is that the old models are left in a gakky rules-situation and Intercessors not having the options of normal Marines. Drop "normal" Marines, give Primaris comparable loadouts so people don't have to can their entire armies and call it a day.
The fact that everytime this is brought up it faces heavy resistance says otherwise.
GW could have done two different things with Primaris that wouldn't have annoyed existing Marine players: release them as a stand-alone army, or do exactly what AlmightyWalrus suggested. Either would have cheesed off the xenos players ("Why does Imperium need yet another army to add to the soup?" vs "Why do marines get a new model range when [faction x] is still using models from [number] years ago?"), but at least Marine players wouldn't be stressing over whether their existing units would eventually be phased out.
I'm on the fence about which I would have preferred.
And what would you say to the space marine players that hate both options?
"Were you expecting the range to never get updated again? They've been through at least three different iterations of the basic Tac Marine already."
There was a time when everythingGW sold was metal; no plastic, no resin. For a while they were all combined metal-plastic kits. Nothing in the 'Nid range bigger than a Warrior has the same kit they did mid-4th edition. Outside the Kroot and a couple of tanks I think every single thing in the Tau range has been replaced since the initial release. It's not just kits either; Necrons used to make all you wargear stop working when they got close to you. Nids used to have re-spawning troop choices as a base army rule. Expecting a range to never get an update or a significant re-write is just unrealistic.
I don't get why you'd hate Primaris just getting released as a new army though. GW releases new forces on a pretty regular basis.
Because it takes resources away from literally everything else. Fewer marine updates, fewer updates for eldar, for tau, for guard, for sisters, for necrons, for orks.
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Insectum7 wrote: Like Grav does multiple wounds to models with 3+ or better armor, make Flamers do more hits against units with 5+ or worse armor.
Example: Imagine Flamers doing 1D6 +3 hits against models with a save of 5+ or worse.
Though AP is a big change in 8th edition, the change to the horde clearing capacity of template weapons is another huge factor.
Yeah, the flamer nerf is still being felt. It went from a near point blank weapon that could hit 5+ models, to one that struggled to hit more than 3. And is still over costed to boot.
It is nice in Kill Team however. A template isn't as important on the small scales, and a bunch of auto-hits for overwatching is a pretty sweet deal. IMO because of that I view flamers now as less of an offensive weapon, more of a defensive one if you expected to get blobbed by horde armies bumrushing a gunline. Although with that said, there's better units to carry flamers than tactical squads - tanks, dreadnoughts, etc.
I do wonder at what point level 40k is actually play tested at. Although guard is still ridiculous at low point levels, marines can get absurd at something around 1k by bringing 6 venerable dreadnoughts and blowing the enemy to kingdom come.
Mmmpi wrote: Astartes are suffering because everyone who runs them thinks they should be unkillable supermen, and not what they're described as. A Tactical unit.
So the literally hundreds of thousands of people who have Tactical Marines are just stupid and playing them wrong? There’s nothing wrong with the unit at all, it’s just that everyone everywhere don’t share your genius and run Tacticals the ‘right’ way?
Honestly, yeah. I've seen a lot of that over the years. With Veterans down to 14 base Tacs are now pretty tough to take, and that's an issue. But YES, people want their unkillable supermen. And many people DO play them not particularly well because they have an idea of how they should operate in their head, but they don't work that way in actuality because fiction is fiction, and game is game.
Case in point, the obsession over Tacs vs. Guardsmen, a comparison that has been done a gillion times. Often you see cries of "imbalance!" when one unit wins some math war over another. But he truth about game balance is that a single unit doesn't at all have to win over some other unit, ever, as long as there exists some other solution to the problem in their book. But the obsession is over Tacticals, and one of the reasons is because "unkillable supermen shouldn't be losing to guard."
Please provide a direct quote where people in this thread demand Marines to become 'unkillable supermen'.
It's really hard to fix MEQs when even in this thread we get borderline trolls and other apologists who deny even the existence of the problem and come and invent illusionary wishes and requests by some 'others', who agree there being a problem.
Personally I'd be happy for marines to be un-killable supermen, as long as the point cost was appropriate.
because then you would hardly ever see them, except for maybe one or two in large games, or when playing marine v marine and then perhaps other factions would get more of the focus.
meanwhile back in the real world... GW like marines, marines can be painted easily to an acceptable standard and marines sell so marines will always be in the game.
personally I'd make the basic marines cheaper to reflect the lower durability in the game currently, keep the stats the same and the damage they can do per point comes into line with others then leave the specialists at a higher cost with more abilities. but then actually having a company of marines on the table becomes practical
Really they can solve these problems by just adding wounds to the models. If the points stayed the same but a guardsman or other weak infantry model had 1 wound and a tactical marine or other heavier infantry had 3 it would make them more in line with the lore and you wouldn't have to worry about points cost. Yes you'd have to increase wounds across the board for all models in the game but this is perhaps something that should happen anyway. This will never happen though I realize.
Ghorgul wrote: Please provide a direct quote where people in this thread demand Marines to become 'unkillable supermen'.
It's really hard to fix MEQs when even in this thread we get borderline trolls and other apologists who deny even the existence of the problem and come and invent illusionary wishes and requests by some 'others', who agree there being a problem.
Gonna note, the post after yours is saying just add more wounds. Which then just amounts to either custodes level durability, or more plasma spam.
Meanwhile I'll keep beating my "Your stupid powerful weapons are all far under costed" drum and remind people that perhaps the game should be about more than blasting the other guy off the table faster.
Double the cost of special weapons, suddenly armies will seem far more durable.
Ghorgul wrote: Please provide a direct quote where people in this thread demand Marines to become 'unkillable supermen'.
It's really hard to fix MEQs when even in this thread we get borderline trolls and other apologists who deny even the existence of the problem and come and invent illusionary wishes and requests by some 'others', who agree there being a problem.
Gonna note, the post after yours is saying just add more wounds. Which then just amounts to either custodes level durability, or more plasma spam.
Meanwhile I'll keep beating my "Your stupid powerful weapons are all far under costed" drum and remind people that perhaps the game should be about more than blasting the other guy off the table faster.
Double the cost of special weapons, suddenly armies will seem far more durable.
At that point I suspect you'll start to run into issues where it's just more cost effective to bring more basic dudes to achieve the same killing power in many instances. We've seen this with IG and Grenade Launchers for instance.
That said, the broad scope of the game could use some revision downward. We're basically playing mini-epic at 2k and have been for a few editions now. Playing at 750pts is a whole different ballgame to 2k. Playing with less stuff, fewer or no super units like Knights and Primarchs, no tank companies or custodes jetbike captains and the like, and suddenly more classic units start to feel a whole lot tougher and more meaningful.
Ghorgul wrote: It's really hard to fix MEQs when even in this thread we get borderline trolls and other apologists who deny even the existence of the problem and come and invent illusionary wishes and requests by some 'others', who agree there being a problem.
This is probably a throwback to the last big marine thread two months back, you'll find it in proposed rules forum - I gave up on that one after, and I quote, "Marines should lose shootouts to crisis suits and wraithguard and heavy tanks, not any regular infantry. Ever."
That's not to say that tactical marines aren't incredibly underwhelming, nor that GW made a mess of the transition to 8th edition rules with their light infantry and anti-infantry weapons (guardsman should probably have 7+ saves for instance). Chances not taken I suppose with changing the baselines of units, pushing all marines to primaris, etc, etc.
warmaster21 wrote: Ah unkillable marines... they existed once, as movie marines!, fun times.
That is from white dwarf 300. Which still has the best conversions for space marines i've ever seen.
Also has dave taylors grey knight custodes army.
I think giving marines less expensive options or more tactical troop choices better opportunity or a full squad of tacticals that is cheaper than the current one. 12pts for a squad of 10 bolters? BS+3? T4 S3?
Would be an interesting unit would give marines a flexible unit but a good troop choice and a callback to the original legions.
Blndmage wrote: I think the old Movie Marie's are actually pretty good for 8th.
They are still a bit OP, i might play test to see what happens.
Those Movie Marines weren't in the slightest OP. They were, in fact, underpowered.
I feel like, with the right translation to 8th, Movie Marines could be a really viable way to show the "'elite' aspect that a force of Marines should project. Refluffing the rules so they aren't hokey would fix the vast majority of it.
Blndmage wrote: I think the old Movie Marie's are actually pretty good for 8th.
They are still a bit OP, i might play test to see what happens.
Those Movie Marines weren't in the slightest OP. They were, in fact, underpowered.
I feel like, with the right translation to 8th, Movie Marines could be a really viable way to show the "'elite' aspect that a force of Marines should project. Refluffing the rules so they aren't hokey would fix the vast majority of it.
I feel like, with the right translation to 8th, Movie Marines could be a really viable way to show the "'elite' aspect that a force of Marines should project. Refluffing the rules so they aren't hokey would fix the vast majority of it.
Illustrating exactly the sentiment that I'm talking about. ". . .show the "elite" aspect that a force of Marines should project."
I feel like, with the right translation to 8th, Movie Marines could be a really viable way to show the "'elite' aspect that a force of Marines should project. Refluffing the rules so they aren't hokey would fix the vast majority of it.
Illustrating exactly the sentiment that I'm talking about. ". . .show the "elite" aspect that a force of Marines should project."
I'll elaborate on my comment.
I personally don't think Movie Marines are needed, but I can totally see why they could work for those who are looking for that effect.
I also think things like Necrons should be back to their proper 3+ saves. 3+ isn't what it was in old editions, but everything is different now. We can't look to past edition rules for specific math, but we can look at past editions for themes that need to be upheld when working to keep faction theme relevant.
A.T. wrote: That's not to say that tactical marines aren't incredibly underwhelming, nor that GW made a mess of the transition to 8th edition rules with their light infantry and anti-infantry weapons (guardsman should probably have 7+ saves for instance). Chances not taken I suppose with changing the baselines of units, pushing all marines to primaris, etc, etc.
I feel like, with the right translation to 8th, Movie Marines could be a really viable way to show the "'elite' aspect that a force of Marines should project. Refluffing the rules so they aren't hokey would fix the vast majority of it.
Illustrating exactly the sentiment that I'm talking about. ". . .show the "elite" aspect that a force of Marines should project."
I'll elaborate on my comment.
I personally don't think Movie Marines are needed, but I can totally see why they could work for those who are looking for that effect.
Sure, but whether you are serious or not it is a sort of ideal that many players crave, hence the mere existence of "movie marines" in the first place. There is a very pervasive fantasy around what marines "should be" (even if not quite that extreme). It colors expectations for tabletop performance.
I feel like, with the right translation to 8th, Movie Marines could be a really viable way to show the "'elite' aspect that a force of Marines should project. Refluffing the rules so they aren't hokey would fix the vast majority of it.
Illustrating exactly the sentiment that I'm talking about. ". . .show the "elite" aspect that a force of Marines should project."
That's a late contender for "Strawman of the Year".
It's much easier to have a conversation on a subject if you don't put words in people's mouths you know.
Insectum7 wrote:Sure, but whether you are serious or not it is a sort of ideal that many players crave, hence the mere existence of "movie marines" in the first place. There is a very pervasive fantasy around what marines "should be" (even if not quite that extreme). It colors expectations for tabletop performance.
There is a galactic supercluster of difference between ‘Marines should play more elite than their current rules allow’ and ‘Marines should be Movie-Marines’.
Marines currently do not feel elite at all. People wishing for them to be at least somewhat more elite does not mean Marine players are childish fanboys that just want to run dick first at the enemy and win every game, no matter how much you wish for that to be the case.
Dysartes wrote:
A.T. wrote: That's not to say that tactical marines aren't incredibly underwhelming, nor that GW made a mess of the transition to 8th edition rules with their light infantry and anti-infantry weapons (guardsman should probably have 7+ saves for instance). Chances not taken I suppose with changing the baselines of units, pushing all marines to primaris, etc, etc.
7+? What the heck?
It’s not that outlandish an idea. For twenty years Guardsmen haven’t gotten a save against most armies’ basic guns. This would really just make that true again.
It’s not that outlandish an idea. For twenty years Guardsmen haven’t gotten a save against most armies’ basic guns. This would really just make that true again.
Yeah but also power armors didn't get any save against anti elite-tanks weapons, now they save the same shots at 5+ or 6+. Terminators even on 4+ or 5+.
The new game design is to allow saves, unless you're targeting a unit with a weapon that is absolutely devastating for that target like an AP-4 or -5 against a power armor or an AP-2 against a cheap infantry. That works for light infantries against anti horde weapons but also for elites against some anti tank. Ork rokkits were amazing against SM, instant killing them on 2s with no save allowed. Now they still wound on 2s, but SM get a 5+ save and 4+ wounds T4 characters are not instant killed anymore by a single shot.
Insectum7 wrote:Sure, but whether you are serious or not it is a sort of ideal that many players crave, hence the mere existence of "movie marines" in the first place. There is a very pervasive fantasy around what marines "should be" (even if not quite that extreme). It colors expectations for tabletop performance.
There is a galactic supercluster of difference between ‘Marines should play more elite than their current rules allow’ and ‘Marines should be Movie-Marines’.
Marines currently do not feel elite at all. People wishing for them to be at least somewhat more elite does not mean Marine players are childish fanboys that just want to run dick first at the enemy and win every game, no matter how much you wish for that to be the case.
Note in my quote "not quite that extreme".
Then note a call in the thread for marines to have rerollable saves, giving the basic tac marine better than a 2+ save. (Which really would allow them to run dick first against a number of units).
Here's a good litmus test: How elite should a Tac marine feel compated to other "elite" units? Aspect Warriors, Necron Immortals, Ork Nobz, etc. Where does the problem lie?
I think the Primaris feel almost appropriately elite to me. This is really not about the army being good overall, but small number of models get gak done and are pretty hard to kill. Some units (Reivers, Intercessors) lack a bit of offence, but overall a full Primaris force feels more like a Space Marine army (IMHO) should than marines in any previous edition of the game.
Here's a good litmus test: How elite should a Tac marine feel compated to other "elite" units? Aspect Warriors, Necron Immortals, Ork Nobz, etc. Where does the problem lie?
Pretty much all faction have an elite branch of troops, beside those named above, we could add Tyranid Warriors, Genestealers (especially the cult version), Wraithguard, Tempestus Scions, Sisters of Battle, Harlequins, Incubi and even, up to a certain point, Skitarii.
In my opinion, your basic (tactical, assault, devastator) Space Marine should probably be pretty much be in the middle of the pack at most when compared with these ones.
From what I get from this thread. Power armor or 3+ save aren't the problem. Many of these units do have power armors or an equivalent. The problem seems to be on Space Marines head and more particularly on Tactical and Assault squad head.
Here's a good litmus test: How elite should a Tac marine feel compated to other "elite" units? Aspect Warriors, Necron Immortals, Ork Nobz, etc. Where does the problem lie?
Pretty much all faction have an elite branch of troops, beside those named above, we could add Tyranid Warriors, Genestealers (especially the cult version), Wraithguard, Tempestus Scions, Sisters of Battle, Harlequins, Incubi and even, up to a certain point, Skitarii.
In my opinion, your basic (tactical, assault, devastator) Space Marine should probably be pretty much be in the middle of the pack at most when compared with these ones.
From what I get from this thread. Power armor or 3+ save aren't the problem. Many of these units do have power armors or an equivalent. The problem seems to be on Space Marines head and more particularly on Tactical and Assault squad head.
That's why I always say the problem is primarily the abysmal offense.
Here's a good litmus test: How elite should a Tac marine feel compated to other "elite" units? Aspect Warriors, Necron Immortals, Ork Nobz, etc. Where does the problem lie?
Pretty much all faction have an elite branch of troops, beside those named above, we could add Tyranid Warriors, Genestealers (especially the cult version), Wraithguard, Tempestus Scions, Sisters of Battle, Harlequins, Incubi and even, up to a certain point, Skitarii.
In my opinion, your basic (tactical, assault, devastator) Space Marine should probably be pretty much be in the middle of the pack at most when compared with these ones.
From what I get from this thread. Power armor or 3+ save aren't the problem. Many of these units do have power armors or an equivalent. The problem seems to be on Space Marines head and more particularly on Tactical and Assault squad head.
That's why I always say the problem is primarily the abysmal offense.
To me, it's more a problem of pricing. Two points of reduction on individual Marines in Tactical squad and the problem is pretty much solved. Space Marines guns aren't that great compared to those of the units mentioned above (of course those that happen to have guns, you won't suffer much casualties from Incubi shooting). If not, I already talked about increasing the range of boltguns and adding a bit more oomph to close combat by giving Marines an extra attack either through gear or through statline (I would favor gear).
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: And that made a lot of units more significantly durable compared to Marine units.
That's true but mostly because many of those cheap dudes are undercosted. Cultists, kabals and guardsmen should be 7ppm not 4, 5 or 6. Many anti horde weapons could inflict more wounds with the blast/template than the current D3-D6 system which is another thing that made Marines less durable per point than cheap dudes. Add the need to bring all the anti tank in the world because the most broken things are unkillable superheroes/walkers and marines look screwed by the new system, even if it's not the real reason behind marines durability. Just make some undercosted troops more expensive, double the shots on former blast/template weapons, nerf the strongest superheroes. Marines durability fixed.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: And that made a lot of units more significantly durable compared to Marine units.
That's true but mostly because many of those cheap dudes are undercosted. Cultists, kabals and guardsmen should be 7ppm not 4, 5 or 6. Many anti horde weapons could inflict more wounds with the blast/template than the current D3-D6 system which is another thing that made Marines less durable per point than cheap dudes. Add the need to bring all the anti tank in the world because the most broken things are unkillable superheroes/walkers and marines look screwed by the new system, even if it's not the real reason behind marines durability. Just make some undercosted troops more expensive, double the shots on former blast/template weapons, nerf the strongest superheroes. Marines durability fixed.
Well, no, you'll just have broken those weeny infantry units. Nobody is going to play with 7ppm Cultists or Guardsmen.
Doubling the shots on former blast/template weapons makes Marines less survivable as well because their saves are being overwhelmed at twice the rate they are now
Marines biggest problem isn't being outshone by lighter infantry. You could remove Guardsmen and Cultists from the game and Marines would still have issues.
The fundamental scale of the game has run away on itself, and the differences between "elite" and "horde" have become compressed, a Space Marine is a whole lot closer to a Guardsman than they are a Custodes for instance, and the firepower in the game has skyrocketed and basic infantry of all types regardless of how powerful they may be all dies the same, and a gaggle of Knights doesn't much find a difference between stepping on a Marine or a Guardsmen (they both go "squish").
A 15-25% reduction on points costs for most non-vehicle Space Marine units is probably in order. If a Tac Squad is more 10/11ppm than 13, and a Jet Pack Assault Squad is more 12ppm than 16, things start to look a lot better, and without mucking with lots of other stuff.
I think this was suggested before, but do you think it would help if Marines were given an extra attack?
If they're meant to be decent in both shooting and assault, then it seems silly that they only have one attack apiece. Especially when it comes to stuff like Grey Knights.
That's true but mostly because many of those cheap dudes are undercosted. Cultists, kabals and guardsmen should be 7ppm not 4, 5 or 6. Many anti horde weapons could inflict more wounds with the blast/template than the current D3-D6 system which is another thing that made Marines less durable per point than cheap dudes.
I don't think it's that simple.
You list Kabalites, but in spite of their low cost, most competitive DE lists avoid taking Kabalite Warriors entirely. They just take Spearheads and/or Air-Wings. Hence, I'm not seeing how making an already dubious unit more expensive will help matters.
Unless you also plan to replace their pop-guns with actual weapons?
And 7pt Cultists and Guardsmen would just be ludicrous, unless you also plan to increase the cost of everything else in the game by 50%.
Insectum7 wrote: Sure, but whether you are serious or not it is a sort of ideal that many players crave, hence the mere existence of "movie marines" in the first place. There is a very pervasive fantasy around what marines "should be" (even if not quite that extreme). It colors expectations for tabletop performance.
And you circle back to your opinion that Power Armor is just fine as is and this thread is pointless? Great!
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vipoid wrote: I think this was suggested before, but do you think it would help if Marines were given an extra attack?
If they're meant to be decent in both shooting and assault, then it seems silly that they only have one attack apiece. Especially when it comes to stuff like Grey Knights.
I'm not sure if even giving just +1 A to every marine would fix the problem. It's just really hard to get around the fact that you pay 13 points for 1 wound model that isn't even durable in any significant amount. Like has been stated before, almost every 'anti-horde' kills statistically more marines in points than actual cheap horde units, like guardsmen in this case.
I think +1 A and maybe like 11-12 points per model would be justified if Bolter's damage output was increased a little somehow (AP -1?) so in general the durability stayed the same, priced decreased slightly and damage output increased. General damage output and price can't be changed too much, otherwise there is risk of seeing 15-20 man Black Legion marine hordes with Abaddon that wreck everything with buff+stratagem stacking. So there is risk that too much buffing to basic statline and rules can make the already available buff-stratagem stacking combos too efficient, so the GW possibly has painted itself in corner and the basic Troop Marines are balanced relative to the best combos available.
This balancing based on the best-case (or worst-case, depending whether you are on the receiving end or not) combo scenarios seems to recurring theme with 8th edition, this seemingly happened with cultists when they were increased to 5 pts per model.
I think +1 A and maybe like 11-12 points per model would be justified if Bolter's damage output was increased a little somehow (AP -1?) so in general the durability stayed the same, priced decreased slightly and damage output increased.
Do you not thing Marines getting +1A, a damage increase on Bolters *and* a drop in price might be a tad excessive?
I think +1 A and maybe like 11-12 points per model would be justified if Bolter's damage output was increased a little somehow (AP -1?) so in general the durability stayed the same, priced decreased slightly and damage output increased.
Do you not thing Marines getting +1A, a damage increase on Bolters *and* a drop in price might be a tad excessive?
Yeah, I agree it might be a problem, I did not start making exact comparison calculations on this. I think it's a bit problematic to just increase their damage output while their durability would stay the same as their durability is really weak to begin with. They would still pay 13 points for 1 wound while you get 3 wounds of guardsmen with same amount of points.
+1 A would 'double' their CC efficiency but it would still be complicated to get to melee consistently, and if 5 marines would have killed 1.77 GEQs per turn previously, doubling this to 3.55 GEQs per turn would hardly be significant. Similarly Bolter firepower (rapid fire) would increase from 2.96 GEQs per turn to 3.70 GEQs per turn, so changing bolter AP to -1 is not that significant. And arguably it's opponents failure if he allows huge blob of marines to get to rapid fire range and charge him without cutting down their numbers first. Together these would be significant change obviously, but this wouldn't change the fact that 4 point guardsmen are still very nice massed wound screening unit while marines are not. So of course marines should instead have better damage output.
Currently MEQs can't even hold or contest objectives against objective secured horde-like cheap wound units because they don't have durability (in relative manner), models or firepower. Just increasing the firepower is not going to entirely fix the problem of relatively poor durability and the fact that they pay 13 points per 1 wound/model, which is just plain bad.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: And that made a lot of units more significantly durable compared to Marine units.
That's true but mostly because many of those cheap dudes are undercosted. Cultists, kabals and guardsmen should be 7ppm not 4, 5 or 6. Many anti horde weapons could inflict more wounds with the blast/template than the current D3-D6 system which is another thing that made Marines less durable per point than cheap dudes. Add the need to bring all the anti tank in the world because the most broken things are unkillable superheroes/walkers and marines look screwed by the new system, even if it's not the real reason behind marines durability. Just make some undercosted troops more expensive, double the shots on former blast/template weapons, nerf the strongest superheroes. Marines durability fixed.
Well, no, you'll just have broken those weeny infantry units. Nobody is going to play with 7ppm Cultists or Guardsmen.
Doubling the shots on former blast/template weapons makes Marines less survivable as well because their saves are being overwhelmed at twice the rate they are now
Marines biggest problem isn't being outshone by lighter infantry. You could remove Guardsmen and Cultists from the game and Marines would still have issues.
The fundamental scale of the game has run away on itself, and the differences between "elite" and "horde" have become compressed, a Space Marine is a whole lot closer to a Guardsman than they are a Custodes for instance, and the firepower in the game has skyrocketed and basic infantry of all types regardless of how powerful they may be all dies the same, and a gaggle of Knights doesn't much find a difference between stepping on a Marine or a Guardsmen (they both go "squish").
A 15-25% reduction on points costs for most non-vehicle Space Marine units is probably in order. If a Tac Squad is more 10/11ppm than 13, and a Jet Pack Assault Squad is more 12ppm than 16, things start to look a lot better, and without mucking with lots of other stuff.
Well people need CPs so troops are always needed. IMHO no troop choice should be under 7ppm unless it's something like gretchins, aka T2 no saves at all. Maybe people won't spam min squads of troops just to get cheap batteries of CPs, and that would be great. Tacs are maybe overcosted but 10ppm is definitely too much. I'd make them 12ppm. 10-11ppm is ok for units like blood claws which only have pistols and BS4+.
I agree that lighter infantries are not the cause of SM problem, or at least they're not the only cause. As I said they suffer from a competitive meta in which if you don't design your list in order to 1-shot a knight you won't have any chance, and that's ridiculous. I play sometimes in a competitive group in which there are two house rules: no soups, no LoWs. That changes the meta quite a lot and SM have indeed more durability. They still have issues of course but in a more balanced meta they already can perform. SM already got lots of points reductions, I don't think that giving them 20-30 additional points due to cheaper tacs will make a huge difference.
I'd keep 13ppm SM if they get effective combos like the most competitive armies. Better chapter traits, stratagems, psychic powers and some close combat synergies. Those are things that SM desperately need, not more durability or better damage output. Their shooting is already above average.
You list Kabalites, but in spite of their low cost, most competitive DE lists avoid taking Kabalite Warriors entirely. They just take Spearheads and/or Air-Wings. Hence, I'm not seeing how making an already dubious unit more expensive will help matters.
Unless you also plan to replace their pop-guns with actual weapons?
And 7pt Cultists and Guardsmen would just be ludicrous, unless you also plan to increase the cost of everything else in the game by 50%.
Yeah because drukhari can have some broken lists with just vehicles and tons of coven stuff. But 6ppm kabalites are among the most effective troops.
I don't think cultists and guardsmen are worse than ork boyz to be honest, maybe just -1ppm so 6ppm instead of 7ppm. But definitely not almost half the cost of an ork boy.
Yeah because drukhari can have some broken lists with just vehicles and tons of coven stuff. But 6ppm kabalites are among the most effective troops.
If Kabalites really were as effective as you claim, then most (if not all) tournament lists would be running a Kabal Battalion, which would give 5 times as many CPs as a Spearhead or Airwing. Instead, what we see is competitive DE players avoiding Kabalites like the plague.
Yes, Kabalites are cheap, but their guns are complete garbage. You've basically got a single Blaster and 4 ablative wounds for it.
More importantly, you're not just buying the Kabalites - you're also buying transports for them (which generally cost more than the actual squads). However, the Venom only brings more useless guns and the Raider is a mix of inefficient and 'too many eggs in one basket'.
What's more, Kabalites have basically no support. Guardsmen are good because of stuff like FRFSRF. Kabalites don't have anything even remotely comparable. The best they can do is reroll 1s to-hit thanks to the Archon's aura... which doesn't work if they're in transports. And they will be in transports because that's the whole point of Kabal.
I don't think cultists and guardsmen are worse than ork boyz to be honest, maybe just -1ppm so 6ppm instead of 7ppm. But definitely not almost half the cost of an ork boy.
6pts is still way too much for Cultists or Guardsmen.
Unless, once again, you plan to increase the cost of everything else in the game by ~50%?
Insectum7 wrote: Sure, but whether you are serious or not it is a sort of ideal that many players crave, hence the mere existence of "movie marines" in the first place. There is a very pervasive fantasy around what marines "should be" (even if not quite that extreme). It colors expectations for tabletop performance.
And you circle back to your opinion that Power Armor is just fine as is and this thread is pointless? Great!
That doesn't make the thread pointless. I can use this thread to show how your thinking is in error, of course!
vipoid wrote: I think this was suggested before, but do you think it would help if Marines were given an extra attack?
If they're meant to be decent in both shooting and assault, then it seems silly that they only have one attack apiece. Especially when it comes to stuff like Grey Knights.
I'm not sure if even giving just +1 A to every marine would fix the problem. It's just really hard to get around the fact that you pay 13 points for 1 wound model that isn't even durable in any significant amount. Like has been stated before, almost every 'anti-horde' kills statistically more marines in points than actual cheap horde units, like guardsmen in this case.
A: Genestealers are 12 ppm, and die easier than Marines. But they're a fine unit, so straight "durability per point" isn't necessarily the problem.
B: If there was a true "anti-horde" weapon, the Marines/Guardsmen matchup could be very different, and make Marines feel more elite by virtue of not falling victim to dedicated anti-horde weapons. The anti-Grav-gun-Flamer-weapon is a potential direction. (Flamers deal more hits if the targets armor is worse than 4+)
C: Boosting Marine offense in general has more "legacy support" than increasing their Wounds characteristic or Power Armor save.
vipoid wrote: Regarding Bolters, what about giving them +1 to wound against units with a Toughness of 3 or less?
Depends on whether we think it's just a Marines vs. Guard problem, or a Marine damage output problem, and whether we want to bring Sisters of Battle along with us. My feeling is that Battle Sisters are probably fine and a bolter upgrade might buff them too much. I'm not really sure.
I like the idea of Marines getting extra shots in order to minimize special rules, pump overall damage output, but not affect other bolter weilding units. I could be wrong with that direction though. Its also a legacy thing.
vipoid wrote: Unless, once again, you plan to increase the cost of everything else in the game by ~50%?
Wouldn't be a bad plan - the low points values are pretty crowded.
Insectum7 wrote: My feeling is that Battle Sisters are probably fine and a bolter upgrade might buff them too much. I'm not really sure.
The beta dex could always do with another playtester.
They have parity with marines against small arms (die more, cost less), greater numbers, worse guns, and suck in assault. A bolter upgrade would definitely benefit them more than marines simply due to weight of numbers - 3 bolter sisters for every 2 bolter marines - and their favoured special weapon being two bolters glued together.
Blndmage wrote: What about other 3+ units?
Or are we now just talking Marines?
Well, if we went the "dedicated horde clearing weapon" route, it would help the relationship between all 3+save units and horde-style units. I think most factions have some sort of flamer, too.
Added bonus for Marines is that improved flamers give a niche for Assault Marines in comparisson to Vanguard.
As far as "Dedicated horde clearing weapons" go, I'd just like to see more weapons and rules that interact with large squads.
I remember when 8th was first being teased by Games Workshop hearing a rumor (I think it was even an official GW teaser, in fact) saying that Frag Grenades would by d6 hits, but if you attacked a unit in a building (or was it a ruin?) they would instead get an automatic 6. I'd like to see things like that, but adapted for killing large squads.
Certain anti-infantry weapons that do random shots instead get a set number of shots. (Say, frag missiles could get one shot per five models, to a maximum of six.) Flamers get one automatic hit for every two models in range, up to... Say, five. (This would also solve the problem of flame and "blast" weapons being better against characters than they are against infantry.)
These numbers would obviously require tweaking and rebalancing, and it'd have to be handled on a unit by unit basis, but I think it'd be an effective way to add weapons that are actually better against infantry than they are against heavy infantry, instead of the current situation where volume of fire is blatantly good against all targets and so "anti infantry" weapons become "anti everything" weapons.
The best fix for marines at this time is new strats. We have the worst strats by far and I feel that is what is hurting marines the most. Other factions live and die by their strats (and psychic powers) and marines are lacking so much in these categories that the army is just a mess.
Applies only to marine armies. Don't have to worry about re-writing existing codexes. We already see GW milking the SM players with vigilus and now white dwarf for rules so there's precedent for adding new strats. Will also have minimal impact on other codexes that wear power armor and use bolters. [tinfoil] Actually I'm pretty sure this is the route GW is going to take as it allows them to milk the largest player base by making the books "required" for a functioning marine army and they can push whatever models they want by applying the strats to them [/tinfoil]
Not sure on the cost of these or if they should be phase, round or turn. But access to some good strategems would make marines actually feel tactical and reward players for bringing as many CP as possible (hopefully the loyal 32 will be drug out back and shot soon with Gulliman).
Count bolter weapons as in rapid fire all the way to the weapons max range
+1 to hit with bolter weapons
+1 to wound with bolter weapons
A units bolter weapons gain -1 ap +1 save on an infantry unit
4++ save on an infantry unit
5++ FNP on an infantry unit
Vehicle may use smoke and fire this turn (maybe shooting at a -1)
A unit (aggressors) counts as not moving this phase/turn/round
Enemy must re-roll successful charges vs unit that hasn't moved (scouts only maybe, before charge distance is rolled)
Deepstrike or some crazy counter deepstrike (enemy must roll a 4+ in order to deepstrike a unit this turn)
Re-deploy after enemy has deployed
There are tons of options to make marines play like actual tactical tools without resorting to re-writing the entire codex.
If marines could do this in response to enemy actions/composition marines would at least be fun to play, would remove some of the point and click aspect to the game and actually give marines some tactical options outside of castle up around buffs. Would give marines a unique flavor without having to write a bunch of special rules in their data sheets.
If we want to get crazy remove re-roll auras, bake re-roll 1's to hit into the marine profile and give captians/lts some of the above as "orders" for a couple units and call it a day. Auto re-rolls help the offensive problem vs bad save troops but doesn't do as much against marines. Allows marines to not have to castle up as much (doubt this will happen as it requires too much of a change, chapter tactics and data sheets but I hate auras).
If Kabalites really were as effective as you claim, then most (if not all) tournament lists would be running a Kabal Battalion, which would give 5 times as many CPs as a Spearhead or Airwing. Instead, what we see is competitive DE players avoiding Kabalites like the plague.
Yes, Kabalites are cheap, but their guns are complete garbage. You've basically got a single Blaster and 4 ablative wounds for it.
More importantly, you're not just buying the Kabalites - you're also buying transports for them (which generally cost more than the actual squads). However, the Venom only brings more useless guns and the Raider is a mix of inefficient and 'too many eggs in one basket'.
What's more, Kabalites have basically no support. Guardsmen are good because of stuff like FRFSRF. Kabalites don't have anything even remotely comparable. The best they can do is reroll 1s to-hit thanks to the Archon's aura... which doesn't work if they're in transports. And they will be in transports because that's the whole point of Kabal.
What competitive players run at tournaments is irrelevant. They mostly run soups and there are more efficient aeldari troops than drukhari ones. That's also another thing, both drukhari and aeldari soups don't need tons of CPs to be effective so there's no reason to build the list like the imperium and its loyal 32 concept. That's why you see spamming grots, talos, ravagers and flyers mostly.
3x5 kabalites and a blaster archon in two raders are cheap and effective, venoms are not needed even if they're not garbage either.
6pts is still way too much for Cultists or Guardsmen.
Unless, once again, you plan to increase the cost of everything else in the game by ~50%?
No, only undercosted stuff. AM has half the codex that is undercosted so they definitely should get several price hikes. Again, if ork boyz are ok at 7pts also those troops should be priced around that standard. Gretchins are T2 no saves, no kultur bonus, can't use stratagems (but their own one) and they're 3ppm. Guardsmen at only 4pts don't make any sense, they're definitely twice as good and gretchins can't go under 3 pts or we'll see 150 of them in every game. I also think that TACs are ok for 12-13 ppm which means that the cheapest shooty troops like kabals, cultists and guardsmen make sense at 7ppm. I feel like guardsmen are extremely undercosted and other troops slightly undercosted, so no, I wouldn't plan on increasing the cost of everything else in the game, not even by 10%, only undercosted stuff.
Do you think that drukhari transport are undercosted? They cost more than the max size of the unit that rides in them, which is ridiculous IMHO, a transport should always be cheaper than the crew embarked. And yet venoms and raiders seem to be priced correctly, maybe they're even a bit overcosted. I'd definitely prefer 7ppm kabals (and wyches), 50-55ppm venoms, 65-70ppm raiders than 6ppm kabals, 65ppm venoms and 80ppm raiders.
bananathug wrote: Count bolter weapons as in rapid fire all the way to the weapons max range
+1 to hit with bolter weapons
+1 to wound with bolter weapons
A units bolter weapons gain -1 ap +1 save on an infantry unit
4++ save on an infantry unit
5++ FNP on an infantry unit
Vehicle may use smoke and fire this turn (maybe shooting at a -1)
A unit (aggressors) counts as not moving this phase/turn/round
Enemy must re-roll successful charges vs unit that hasn't moved (scouts only maybe, before charge distance is rolled)
Deepstrike or some crazy counter deepstrike (enemy must roll a 4+ in order to deepstrike a unit this turn)
Re-deploy after enemy has deployed
There are tons of options to make marines play like actual tactical tools without resorting to re-writing the entire codex.
If marines could do this in response to enemy actions/composition marines would at least be fun to play, would remove some of the point and click aspect to the game and actually give marines some tactical options outside of castle up around buffs. Would give marines a unique flavor without having to write a bunch of special rules in their data sheets.
Plenty of good options there.
Also it occured to me, why couldn't they put "tactical" back into tactical squads and allow marines to purchase special weapon just as a *special weapon* and the player could choose which special weapon the unit is equipped with at start of match up instead of being hard locked like now. Of course this would need to be modelled, but I'm sure this extra-modelling-needed still satisfies any possible money grabbing urges from GW, especially when they apparently tried to go for Power Level approach which inherently allowed this.
What competitive players run at tournaments is irrelevant.
No, it just proves that you're talking nonsense.
Blackie wrote: They mostly run soups and there are more efficient aeldari troops than drukhari ones.
So why are you advocating for the Drukhari troops to get a price hike, instead of the more efficient troops?
Blackie wrote: That's also another thing, both drukhari and aeldari soups don't need tons of CPs to be effective so there's no reason to build the list like the imperium and its loyal 32 concept. That's why you see spamming grots, talos, ravagers and flyers mostly.
They might not be quite as reliant on CPs, but they still have a lot of good Stratagems. If, as you say, Kabalite Warriors were super-efficient to the point of being undercosted, then there would be no reason to not take a few units of them and get 5x the CPs.
3x5 kabalites and a blaster archon in two raders are cheap and effective, venoms are not needed even if they're not garbage either.
You can make these claims all you want, but at some point you'll have to face the fact that reality doesn't back them up.
Once again, if this is such a great build, then why aren't any tournament lists running it?
And if you say 'because there are even better options elsewhere', then why are you campaigning for Kabalites to get a price-hike, instead of whichever Eldar/DE/Harlequin troops are out-competing them?
Oh, so your plan is to just pick 3 units you don't like and make them unplayable. Gotcha.
Blackie wrote: AM has half the codex that is undercosted so they definitely should get several price hikes.
Even if we accept that Infantry Squads are undercosted, the price-hikes you're asking for are plain ludicrous.
You're not asking for them to be reasonable costed, you're asking for them to be so expensive as to be unplayable.
Blackie wrote: Again, if ork boyz are ok at 7pts also those troops should be priced around that standard.
Since when did the cost of an Ork Boy become the standard by which all troops were measured?
Also, we seem to be ignoring the fact that the Ork Boy is S4 T4, compared to S3 T3 for the guardsman. I guess a Space Marine should also be 7pts.
Blackie wrote: Gretchins are T2 no saves, no kultur bonus, can't use stratagems (but their own one) and they're 3ppm.
Depends how you look at them. They're very bad on their own, sure. But no one is taking Gretchin for their statlines. They're taking them to give much more valuable units a 2++, thanks to their stratagem.
Blackie wrote: Guardsmen at only 4pts don't make any sense, they're definitely twice as good and gretchins can't go under 3 pts or we'll see 150 of them in every game.
You literally just answered your own question as to why Gretchin are 3pts. Because they're right at the limit of what a unit can reasonably cost before being so cheap that there's no reason to not just spam the hell out of them.
If you want to suggest doubling the points on every unit in the game to give us more design space, I'd be all up for that.
Blackie wrote: I also think that TACs are ok for 12-13 ppm which means that the cheapest shooty troops like kabals, cultists and guardsmen make sense at 7ppm.
Your conclusion doesn't follow your premise.
"TACs are okay at 12-13ppm, therefore Infantry Squads and Cultists need to be so expensive as to be unplayable. This is literally what you're asking for."
"TACs are okay at 12-13pom, therefore Kabalites need to be 7ppm even though competitive lists already avoid them like the plague even at 6ppm."
Blackie wrote: I feel like guardsmen are extremely undercosted and other troops slightly undercosted, so no, I wouldn't plan on increasing the cost of everything else in the game, not even by 10%, only undercosted stuff.
So because you think guardsman are undercosted, you want to make them unplayably expensive?
Look, I can understand wanting to see guardsmen go up in price (Lord knows the topic has been debated enough on this site), but you're overcorrecting far too much. A guardsmen simply should not cost more than 5pts. Literally the only thing that makes them worthwhile is that they're cheap enough to be used en masse, and you're proposing that that should be taken away from them.
Moreover, have you considered the effect on other units in the IG codex? You say that a lot of stuff is overcosted and yet, most of the infantry sees little to no use at all. Special Weapons Squads cost the same as guardsmen but can take 3 special weapons per 6 men. Mathematically they're incredibly efficient... yet no one ever uses them. Veterans, in spite of BS3+ and the ability to take 3 special weapons, were never taken at 6ppm. Now that they're 5pts, I think they're finally starting to see a bit of use. But if they go up to 8 or 9pts, then no one will ever use them again.
Blackie wrote: Do you think that drukhari transport are undercosted?
Not in the slightest.
Blackie wrote: They cost more than the max size of the unit that rides in them, which is ridiculous IMHO, a transport should always be cheaper than the crew embarked.
I think it depends on the transport. If it's something like a Rhino - where the armament is negligible - then definitely. However, if the transport is meant to also bring decent firepower, then I can get behind it being expensive.
Blackie wrote: And yet venoms and raiders seem to be priced correctly, maybe they're even a bit overcosted. I'd definitely prefer 7ppm kabals (and wyches), 50-55ppm venoms, 65-70ppm raiders than 6ppm kabals, 65ppm venoms and 80ppm raiders.
Regarding Venoms, I think the issue is that same as with Kabalites - they're supposed to be gunboats, yet their guns are abysmal. Poison just isn't a worthwhile rule in 8th, and on top of that GW saw fit to halve the optimum range of the Venom.
I'd really like to see Poison replaced by a more meaningful rule, so that my "glass cannon" infantry and transports don't feel so pillow-fisted. In this case, I'd be more than happy to see Kabalites go up in price.
bananathug wrote: The best fix for marines at this time is new strats. We have the worst strats by far and I feel that is what is hurting marines the most. Other factions live and die by their strats (and psychic powers) and marines are lacking so much in these categories that the army is just a mess.
Applies only to marine armies. Don't have to worry about re-writing existing codexes. We already see GW milking the SM players with vigilus and now white dwarf for rules so there's precedent for adding new strats. Will also have minimal impact on other codexes that wear power armor and use bolters. [tinfoil] Actually I'm pretty sure this is the route GW is going to take as it allows them to milk the largest player base by making the books "required" for a functioning marine army and they can push whatever models they want by applying the strats to them [/tinfoil]
All other conversation to the side, fixing strats does feel like the actual answer to the problem, and the one GW is going for as well.
Marines don't have a good all-purpose weapon that can handle anti-horde and anti-tank duties, Vigilus lets Imperial Fist go mortal-wound fishing on vehicles with selected units that would otherwise only be good against infantry (and isn't it convenient that Centurions and Redemptors do full dakka-mode better than almost anything else in the book, and that full-dakka is their cheapest mode, and that both of them also needed more of a price cut than they got in CA?)
That formation also partially addresses the issue with non-smurf Marines almost always taking the Captain/Lieutenant combo by adding the "Lieutenant Buff artifact" so you can try some of the other HQ options without shooting yourself in the foot. It's not really fixing the problem (Marine shooting being inefficient without the auras) but it's at least letting some of the other choices out of the display case.
GW also seems to be addressing the complaints about how lethal the current rules are with the Cities of Death rules, if most tournaments don't wind up adopting those rules as the standard I'll be very surprised. (And hey, Vigilus made Imperal Fists more viable just as ignoring the cover rules suddenly got better.)
The Newman wrote: Marines don't have a good all-purpose weapon that can handle anti-horde and anti-tank duties ...
Can you give an example of a weapon you want to emulate in this role?
Also, why does it have to be a weapon rather than a unit or other option.
The optimal gun in 8e is moderate to high Strength/intermediate AP, does multiple damage, and fires a large number of shots; battle cannons, heavy burst cannons, Knight gatling cannons, and the like. Space Marines sort of have a weapon in this bracket in the form of Hellblaster squads, but they're hard-countered to death by other peoples' optimal guns since they're two-wound T4 models and lose shots every time they lose models where giant vehicle cannons don't (on top of being out-ranged by the rest of the optimal guns), they're more expensive because their AP is higher than it needs to be (the way armour and Invulnerable saves on the units people actually take work there's diminishing returns for any AP better than about -2), and they need a 100pt character to do nothing other than babysit them to make sure they don't blow themselves up when shooting.
It isn't so much about being a weapon that can handle anti-horde and anti-tank duties as it is about reliability (compare a meltagun to a plasma gun; the odds of a plasma gun doing squat are dramatically lower than those of a meltagun doing squat simply because it has two shots); Space Marines' anti-tank relies on either single-shot d6-damage guns or plasma-spam, which is why you see so much more plasma-spam than anything else because it doesn't whiff so much. And plasma-spam is way better at dealing with multi-wound units.
Once again, if this is such a great build, then why aren't any tournament lists running it?
And if you say 'because there are even better options elsewhere', then why are you campaigning for Kabalites to get a price-hike, instead of whichever Eldar/DE/Harlequin troops are out-competing them?
Well, I'm also advocating to ban the soups which is IMHO the main issue of 40k. I'm only interested in stand alone armies at competitive levels since many soups look like "legal cheating" for the amount of cheese with no drawbacks that they can have.
You say that more expensive guardsmen, cultists, etc would be unplayable but I don't think it's true. AM seems to play with 150+ points thanks to all their undercosted stuff, that's a fact.
Ork boyz may be T4 S4 but also 6+ save and BS5+. They work fine only in huge numbers, which make them expensive units, not cheap sources of CPs, you take boyz because you focus some tactics, involving CPs and/or buffing characters, around them. Melee troops are not even remotely as effective as shooty ones.
"TACs are okay at 12-13ppm, therefore Infantry Squads and Cultists need to be so expensive as to be unplayable. This is literally what you're asking for."
"TACs are okay at 12-13pom, therefore Kabalites need to be 7ppm even though competitive lists already avoid them like the plague even at 6ppm."
I think 6-7 points of difference are fair between the cheap troops I listed and tacs. But I wouldn't make tacs 10ppm, they'd be undercosted. 7ppm cultists and guardsmen wouldn't be unplayable, they'd be mediocre, which is what cheap troops are supposed to be. Yet mandatory for screening more valuable units and to get more CPs.
Those competitive drukhari/aeldari lists should be nerfed quite badly to be honest. 3x flyers + 3 ravagers + 20 grots are insane, that's not even 40kIMHO.
Oh, so your plan is to just pick 3 units you don't like and make them unplayable. Gotcha.
There are several units that are undercosted, considering all factions, not just 3. Don't you agree? Think about super cheap HQs, with orks and drukhari I can't go under 62 (ok 55 with a stock big mek but it would be a plain tax with no use in the game) and 50 points and 50 is just the cost of the succubus, if I want a coven or kabal detachment I can't invest less than 72-75 points on an HQ. Same with SW. Those AM super cheap HQs should get price hikes or become elites.
Who said I don't like them? I use kabalites in most of my drukhari lists.
Depends how you look at them. They're very bad on their own, sure. But no one is taking Gretchin for their statlines. They're taking them to give much more valuable units a 2++, thanks to their stratagem.
Not only for the stratagem, which only shields a single unit per turn and it's not even that efficient in mechanized lists. Ork players spam gretchins because they are an area denial unit, cheap objective grabbers and, most important, they unlock CPs for dirt cheap and orks are completely dependant on CPs to work. I'd consider taking gretchins even at 4ppm to be honest.
The Newman wrote: Marines don't have a good all-purpose weapon that can handle anti-horde and anti-tank duties ...
Can you give an example of a weapon you want to emulate in this role?
Also, why does it have to be a weapon rather than a unit or other option.
The optimal gun in 8e is moderate to high Strength/intermediate AP, does multiple damage, and fires a large number of shots; battle cannons, heavy burst cannons, Knight gatling cannons, and the like. Space Marines sort of have a weapon in this bracket in the form of Hellblaster squads, but they're hard-countered to death by other peoples' optimal guns since they're two-wound T4 models and lose shots every time they lose models where giant vehicle cannons don't (on top of being out-ranged by the rest of the optimal guns), they're more expensive because their AP is higher than it needs to be (the way armour and Invulnerable saves on the units people actually take work there's diminishing returns for any AP better than about -2), and they need a 100pt character to do nothing other than babysit them to make sure they don't blow themselves up when shooting.
It isn't so much about being a weapon that can handle anti-horde and anti-tank duties as it is about reliability (compare a meltagun to a plasma gun; the odds of a plasma gun doing squat are dramatically lower than those of a meltagun doing squat simply because it has two shots); Space Marines' anti-tank relies on either single-shot d6-damage guns or plasma-spam, which is why you see so much more plasma-spam than anything else because it doesn't whiff so much. And plasma-spam is way better at dealing with multi-wound units.
Plasma Cannons and Predator Autocannons. Those seem to fit the bill pretty well. With the price drops Im starting to look at Stalkers and Vengeance Whirlwinds too. Honerable mention for Grav Cannons, but they're expensive and they don't get multi damage against Ravagers. Imo we have the tools.
The Newman wrote: Marines don't have a good all-purpose weapon that can handle anti-horde and anti-tank duties ...
Can you give an example of a weapon you want to emulate in this role?
Also, why does it have to be a weapon rather than a unit or other option.
The optimal gun in 8e is moderate to high Strength/intermediate AP, does multiple damage, and fires a large number of shots; battle cannons, heavy burst cannons, Knight gatling cannons, and the like. Space Marines sort of have a weapon in this bracket in the form of Hellblaster squads, but they're hard-countered to death by other peoples' optimal guns since they're two-wound T4 models and lose shots every time they lose models where giant vehicle cannons don't (on top of being out-ranged by the rest of the optimal guns), they're more expensive because their AP is higher than it needs to be (the way armour and Invulnerable saves on the units people actually take work there's diminishing returns for any AP better than about -2), and they need a 100pt character to do nothing other than babysit them to make sure they don't blow themselves up when shooting.
It isn't so much about being a weapon that can handle anti-horde and anti-tank duties as it is about reliability (compare a meltagun to a plasma gun; the odds of a plasma gun doing squat are dramatically lower than those of a meltagun doing squat simply because it has two shots); Space Marines' anti-tank relies on either single-shot d6-damage guns or plasma-spam, which is why you see so much more plasma-spam than anything else because it doesn't whiff so much. And plasma-spam is way better at dealing with multi-wound units.
Basically this. And also that the less wiffy guns also tend to have lower top-end damage unless you're willing to risk blowing them up. The 36 point Macro Plasma Blaster has the same average damage output as a 25 point Lascannon if you're not supercharging it. If you are supercharging it then you need a Techmarine and auras to keep it from destroying the Redemptor that's carrying it.
It's not even that Marines are completely out in the cold on weapons that match those parameters. The Demolisher Cannon, Centurion Missile Launcher, twin Autocannons, and Predator Autocannon all fit the bill, but all of them are limited to lackluster platforms even after CA.
Basic Marines not being able to take Autocannons anymore doesn't help things any, that's an awfully cheap weapon for it's output.
The Newman wrote: Marines don't have a good all-purpose weapon that can handle anti-horde and anti-tank duties ...
Can you give an example of a weapon you want to emulate in this role?
Also, why does it have to be a weapon rather than a unit or other option.
The optimal gun in 8e is moderate to high Strength/intermediate AP, does multiple damage, and fires a large number of shots; battle cannons, heavy burst cannons, Knight gatling cannons, and the like. Space Marines sort of have a weapon in this bracket in the form of Hellblaster squads, but they're hard-countered to death by other peoples' optimal guns since they're two-wound T4 models and lose shots every time they lose models where giant vehicle cannons don't (on top of being out-ranged by the rest of the optimal guns), they're more expensive because their AP is higher than it needs to be (the way armour and Invulnerable saves on the units people actually take work there's diminishing returns for any AP better than about -2), and they need a 100pt character to do nothing other than babysit them to make sure they don't blow themselves up when shooting.
It isn't so much about being a weapon that can handle anti-horde and anti-tank duties as it is about reliability (compare a meltagun to a plasma gun; the odds of a plasma gun doing squat are dramatically lower than those of a meltagun doing squat simply because it has two shots); Space Marines' anti-tank relies on either single-shot d6-damage guns or plasma-spam, which is why you see so much more plasma-spam than anything else because it doesn't whiff so much. And plasma-spam is way better at dealing with multi-wound units.
Plasma Cannons and Predator Autocannons. Those seem to fit the bill pretty well. With the price drops Im starting to look at Stalkers and Vengeance Whirlwinds too. Honerable mention for Grav Cannons, but they're expensive and they don't get multi damage against Ravagers. Imo we have the tools.
The problem with predator autocannons is they’re on predators; overpriced and made of paper. Plasma cannons are reasonable but need babysat unless you’re taking a dev squad with one, in which case you’re taking a tac squad that generates pitiful CP.
What you call babysitting I call improving their damage output.
I have mixed feelings about the predator, but it does have the sort of thing you're looking for. Dakka Pred is pretty cheap, and if it's made of paper a Leman russ is a light cardstock.
Otherwise you have Stalkers and Whirlwinds for Autocannon equivalents.
Insectum7 wrote: What you call babysitting I call improving their damage output.
I have mixed feelings about the predator, but it does have the sort of thing you're looking for. Dakka Pred is pretty cheap, and if it's made of paper a Leman russ is a light cardstock.
Otherwise you have Stalkers and Whirlwinds for Autocannon equivalents.
Actually that does bring up another point; a lot of the good guns that Marines have access to are on platforms that don't get the Chapter Trait bonuses. Some of those traits are fairly significant.
Insectum7 wrote: What you call babysitting I call improving their damage output.
I have mixed feelings about the predator, but it does have the sort of thing you're looking for. Dakka Pred is pretty cheap, and if it's made of paper a Leman russ is a light cardstock.
Otherwise you have Stalkers and Whirlwinds for Autocannon equivalents.
Actually that does bring up another point; a lot of the good guns that Marines have access to are on platforms that don't get the Chapter Trait bonuses. Some of those traits are fairly significant.
Maybe not, but they do benefit from potentially immense buff auras that other factions don't get. Seems like a fairly common subfaction trait is reroll 1s to hit if you don't move, which Space Marines get a better version of anyways for just buying fairly mandatory HQs.
Plasma Cannons are on platforms that get the Chapter Traits. Dreadnoughts are cheap now. Iirc the Leviathan came down in cost, too.
Honestly, between Assault Cannons, Autocannon equivalents like the Icarus Stormcannon or Vengeance Launcher, the Leviathan Cannon-things, Predator Autocannons, Grav Cannons and oh-so-so-much-Plasma, it's not like Marines don't have options.
Storm Cannon Array is one of the best guns in the game. I feel like, now that the Lev has not only avoided nerfs but received a few little buffs in the past 2 Chapter Approveds, we need to put the unit front and centre of the faction, and figure it into our discussions in the same way that the Y'vahra is with Tau. It's a key unit for SMs.
vipoid wrote: Unless, once again, you plan to increase the cost of everything else in the game by ~50%?
Wouldn't be a bad plan - the low points values are pretty crowded.
Lol you think that a 6pts guardsman would help balance when something like a strike would cost 40pts and a termintor almost 90, when both could die to 6-20pts guns en mass?
They just need to bring back the old AP system... Invun saves weren't as prevalent on everything, and things giving invun saves weren't as common; the 3+ save was great as only heavy weapons or specialized weapons negated your save.
The new AP system is a load of crap; especially when they started giving everything a way to get a 5++.
Zid wrote: They just need to bring back the old AP system... Invun saves weren't as prevalent on everything, and things giving invun saves weren't as common; the 3+ save was great as only heavy weapons or specialized weapons negated your save.
The new AP system is a load of crap; especially when they started giving everything a way to get a 5++.
But with the new system, many of those heavy and specialized weapons don't negate your armour, they still give you a 5+ or 6+.
vipoid wrote: Unless, once again, you plan to increase the cost of everything else in the game by ~50%?
Wouldn't be a bad plan - the low points values are pretty crowded.
Lol you think that a 6pts guardsman would help balance when something like a strike would cost 40pts and a termintor almost 90, when both could die to 6-20pts guns en mass?
I think if you increased the price of everything, across the board, then it would be easier to fine tune the points of the infantry units.
Zid wrote: They just need to bring back the old AP system... Invun saves weren't as prevalent on everything, and things giving invun saves weren't as common; the 3+ save was great as only heavy weapons or specialized weapons negated your save.
The new AP system is a load of crap; especially when they started giving everything a way to get a 5++.
But with the new system, many of those heavy and specialized weapons don't negate your armour, they still give you a 5+ or 6+.
Many of those specialized weapons weren't necessary to kill a 4-5 point model before, though.
Zid wrote: They just need to bring back the old AP system... Invun saves weren't as prevalent on everything, and things giving invun saves weren't as common; the 3+ save was great as only heavy weapons or specialized weapons negated your save.
The new AP system is a load of crap; especially when they started giving everything a way to get a 5++.
But with the new system, many of those heavy and specialized weapons don't negate your armour, they still give you a 5+ or 6+.
It's true that the new AP system has improved a little bit the durability of power armors and other 3+ saves, but the new AP system is even more generous with 5+ saves. These saves used to be canceled by pretty much everything, especially by basic weapons like bolters, pulse rifle or shuriken catapult to name just a few. They allowed elite infantry to counter more efficently light infantry, while light infantry was preferable when faced with heavy and special weapons besides flamers and grenade launchers. Now, light infantry is more resilient to heavy infantry firepower and both of them are still similarly affected by heavy weapons. Thinking about it, maybe we would need two AP modifier and a new key word <light armor> and <heavy armor>. Depending on which key word your unit as, you use a different AP profile. But that would require an entire new edition of the game or some very extensive house rules.
Zid wrote: They just need to bring back the old AP system... Invun saves weren't as prevalent on everything, and things giving invun saves weren't as common; the 3+ save was great as only heavy weapons or specialized weapons negated your save.
The new AP system is a load of crap; especially when they started giving everything a way to get a 5++.
The current AP system adds a lot more flexibility to weapons and all those weapons that were flat out ignoring a 3+ entirely before are now typically offering a 5+ or 6+ instead (plasma, battlecannons, lascannons, starcannons, lances, disintegrators, krak missiles, etc). The only place Marines are worse off than before against weapons is against AP-1/formerly AP4 stuff.
Zid wrote: They just need to bring back the old AP system... Invun saves weren't as prevalent on everything, and things giving invun saves weren't as common; the 3+ save was great as only heavy weapons or specialized weapons negated your save.
The new AP system is a load of crap; especially when they started giving everything a way to get a 5++.
But with the new system, many of those heavy and specialized weapons don't negate your armour, they still give you a 5+ or 6+.
It's true that the new AP system has improved a little bit the durability of power armors and other 3+ saves, but the new AP system is even more generous with 5+ saves. These saves used to be canceled by pretty much everything, especially by basic weapons like bolters, pulse rifle or shuriken catapult to name just a few. They allowed elite infantry to counter more efficently light infantry, while light infantry was preferable when faced with heavy and special weapons besides flamers and grenade launchers. Now, light infantry is more resilient to heavy infantry firepower and both of them are still similarly affected by heavy weapons. Thinking about it, maybe we would need two AP modifier and a new key word <light armor> and <heavy armor>. Depending on which key word your unit as, you use a different AP profile. But that would require an entire new edition of the game or some very extensive house rules.
In all fairness, lets not forget that previous editions had lots of cover that acted as a save instead of a save enhancement, and many were notorious for "4+ cover everywhere all the time!", where bolters would seemingly always be hitting up against 4+ cover instead of punching through 5+ or 6+ armor, but would only benefit themselves against heavy weapons.
Now, the flame weapons ignoring cover had a lot of use there that doesn't exist in 8E, which is a fair point, but hard to measure the impact of.
The new AP system is an improvement, though they should be more conservative in handing out the AP. A big part of the issue that most of the weapons and statlines were just converted in the new system (including the new wound chart) without taking in the account the effects of the altered mechanics. For example, perhaps cheap chaff infantry like guard should have only 6+ save. Low saves such as 5´+ and even 6+ are much better in this edition than in previous ones, where they were just completely ignored most of the time. So an average 6+ save in the 8th is worth about as much as 5+ save in the old system.
Crimson wrote: The new AP system is an improvement, though they should be more conservative in handing out the AP. A big part of the issue that most of the weapons and statlines were just converted in the new system (including the new wound chart) without taking in the account the effects of the altered mechanics. For example, perhaps cheap chaff infantry like guard should have only 6+ save. Low saves such as 5´+ and even 6+ are much better in this edition than in previous ones, where they were just completely ignored most of the time. So an average 6+ save in the 8th is worth about as much as 5+ save in the old system.
Surely the save system benefitted Marines more than IG?
I bet we could go back in time and find threads where Marine players incessantly whined complained that the amount of AP3 weapons armies could take in the game was TOO DAMN HIGH! Now, you get a 5+ at least against those weapons, a 4+ in cover.
In fact, if you really want me to, I'll go back and look myself. I distinctly remember Marines complaining about the number of AP3 weapons back before 8th edition was a twinkle GW's eye.
Zid wrote: They just need to bring back the old AP system... Invun saves weren't as prevalent on everything, and things giving invun saves weren't as common; the 3+ save was great as only heavy weapons or specialized weapons negated your save.
The new AP system is a load of crap; especially when they started giving everything a way to get a 5++.
The current AP system adds a lot more flexibility to weapons and all those weapons that were flat out ignoring a 3+ entirely before are now typically offering a 5+ or 6+ instead (plasma, battlecannons, lascannons, starcannons, lances, disintegrators, krak missiles, etc). The only place Marines are worse off than before against weapons is against AP-1/formerly AP4 stuff.
Zid wrote: They just need to bring back the old AP system... Invun saves weren't as prevalent on everything, and things giving invun saves weren't as common; the 3+ save was great as only heavy weapons or specialized weapons negated your save.
The new AP system is a load of crap; especially when they started giving everything a way to get a 5++.
But with the new system, many of those heavy and specialized weapons don't negate your armour, they still give you a 5+ or 6+.
It's true that the new AP system has improved a little bit the durability of power armors and other 3+ saves, but the new AP system is even more generous with 5+ saves. These saves used to be canceled by pretty much everything, especially by basic weapons like bolters, pulse rifle or shuriken catapult to name just a few. They allowed elite infantry to counter more efficently light infantry, while light infantry was preferable when faced with heavy and special weapons besides flamers and grenade launchers. Now, light infantry is more resilient to heavy infantry firepower and both of them are still similarly affected by heavy weapons. Thinking about it, maybe we would need two AP modifier and a new key word <light armor> and <heavy armor>. Depending on which key word your unit as, you use a different AP profile. But that would require an entire new edition of the game or some very extensive house rules.
In all fairness, lets not forget that previous editions had lots of cover that acted as a save instead of a save enhancement, and many were notorious for "4+ cover everywhere all the time!", where bolters would seemingly always be hitting up against 4+ cover instead of punching through 5+ or 6+ armor, but would only benefit themselves against heavy weapons.
Now, the flame weapons ignoring cover had a lot of use there that doesn't exist in 8E, which is a fair point, but hard to measure the impact of.
I understand the idea behind it, that "things with heavier armor will always get a save!"
But at the same point, they buffed weapons that didn't need it (Plasma) within this new system, which now sees them being used for opposite of what they were for.
Same thing, an overcharged plasma means your marine has a 6+, but it deletes a guardsman just the same. On the flip side, my Terminator already had a 5++ to begin with, which means that -3 AP really didn't do much... oh, except now if I fail the save, my terminator dies just like the Marine.
The new AP system penalizes things that pay a premium for better saves, while ignoring the impact of AP on those saves; AP 0 weapons that once deleted light infantry (ALA Bolters), now allow the weakest infantry a save. Not to mention they hand out 5++ saves like candy this edition... I really didn't mind the old AP system; it allowed each weapon its niche, and made lower saves far more important. A plasma gun you KNEW was for Elite infantry, and a melta was for tanks; now people just take Plasma because it gets more shots, reroll 1's takes away the risk, oh and its a flat 2 Damage at one less AP than a melta... plus not to mention its the same strength now!
I just feel like they should have really looked at how it impacted the game as a whole; changing everything to wounds and implementing a new AP system at the same time seemed like reinventing the wheel completely. The new system punishes elite armies with high saves because the saves are mean't to make them having less bodies equal; now people take more bodies because in the end its actually sturdier. Besides the issue with CP, thats why we see Guardsmen as so great, and Cultists, but basic marines are seen as too expensive for what they do.
Crimson wrote: The new AP system is an improvement, though they should be more conservative in handing out the AP. A big part of the issue that most of the weapons and statlines were just converted in the new system (including the new wound chart) without taking in the account the effects of the altered mechanics. For example, perhaps cheap chaff infantry like guard should have only 6+ save. Low saves such as 5´+ and even 6+ are much better in this edition than in previous ones, where they were just completely ignored most of the time. So an average 6+ save in the 8th is worth about as much as 5+ save in the old system.
Surely the save system benefitted Marines more than IG?
I bet we could go back in time and find threads where Marine players incessantly whined complained that the amount of AP3 weapons armies could take in the game was TOO DAMN HIGH! Now, you get a 5+ at least against those weapons, a 4+ in cover.
In fact, if you really want me to, I'll go back and look myself. I distinctly remember Marines complaining about the number of AP3 weapons back before 8th edition was a twinkle GW's eye.
You'll always have those gripes... theres a LOT of different weapons in this game. Usually, though, if you saw those weapons you were hiding in Rhinos or in Cover.
Crimson wrote: The new AP system is an improvement, though they should be more conservative in handing out the AP. A big part of the issue that most of the weapons and statlines were just converted in the new system (including the new wound chart) without taking in the account the effects of the altered mechanics. For example, perhaps cheap chaff infantry like guard should have only 6+ save. Low saves such as 5´+ and even 6+ are much better in this edition than in previous ones, where they were just completely ignored most of the time. So an average 6+ save in the 8th is worth about as much as 5+ save in the old system.
Surely the save system benefitted Marines more than IG?
I bet we could go back in time and find threads where Marine players incessantly whined complained that the amount of AP3 weapons armies could take in the game was TOO DAMN HIGH! Now, you get a 5+ at least against those weapons, a 4+ in cover.
In fact, if you really want me to, I'll go back and look myself. I distinctly remember Marines complaining about the number of AP3 weapons back before 8th edition was a twinkle GW's eye.
It was constant AP2 rather than AP3.
Also yeah the new AP system benefited Marines a lot, and I will constantly argue, as you know, this is the most durable Marines AND Terminators have been ever (as much as some ignorant will argue against the latter).
The issue is that it benefitted anything with a worse save moreso. Termagaunts now basically have the equivalent of a 6++ to any of the usual weapons you'd point at them, even if they had cover.
Insectum7 wrote: What you call babysitting I call improving their damage output.
I have mixed feelings about the predator, but it does have the sort of thing you're looking for. Dakka Pred is pretty cheap, and if it's made of paper a Leman russ is a light cardstock.
Otherwise you have Stalkers and Whirlwinds for Autocannon equivalents.
Actually that does bring up another point; a lot of the good guns that Marines have access to are on platforms that don't get the Chapter Trait bonuses. Some of those traits are fairly significant.
Maybe not, but they do benefit from potentially immense buff auras that other factions don't get. Seems like a fairly common subfaction trait is reroll 1s to hit if you don't move, which Space Marines get a better version of anyways for just buying fairly mandatory HQs.
Plasma Cannons are on platforms that get the Chapter Traits. Dreadnoughts are cheap now. Iirc the Leviathan came down in cost, too.
Honestly, between Assault Cannons, Autocannon equivalents like the Icarus Stormcannon or Vengeance Launcher, the Leviathan Cannon-things, Predator Autocannons, Grav Cannons and oh-so-so-much-Plasma, it's not like Marines don't have options.
They don't "benefit enourmously" from those buffs, they're designed around them. Huge difference between those two. Space Marine shooting is awful without those buffs. It's not great with them.
Crimson wrote: The new AP system is an improvement, though they should be more conservative in handing out the AP. A big part of the issue that most of the weapons and statlines were just converted in the new system (including the new wound chart) without taking in the account the effects of the altered mechanics. For example, perhaps cheap chaff infantry like guard should have only 6+ save. Low saves such as 5´+ and even 6+ are much better in this edition than in previous ones, where they were just completely ignored most of the time. So an average 6+ save in the 8th is worth about as much as 5+ save in the old system.
Surely the save system benefitted Marines more than IG?
I bet we could go back in time and find threads where Marine players incessantly whined complained that the amount of AP3 weapons armies could take in the game was TOO DAMN HIGH! Now, you get a 5+ at least against those weapons, a 4+ in cover.
In fact, if you really want me to, I'll go back and look myself. I distinctly remember Marines complaining about the number of AP3 weapons back before 8th edition was a twinkle GW's eye.
It was constant AP2 rather than AP3.
Also yeah the new AP system benefited Marines a lot, and I will constantly argue, as you know, this is the most durable Marines AND Terminators have been ever (as much as some ignorant will argue against the latter).
The issue is that it benefitted anything with a worse save moreso. Termagaunts now basically have the equivalent of a 6++ to any of the usual weapons you'd point at them, even if they had cover.
Huh, that's odd, Last I checked heavy bolters do ignore the gaunts armor save? Weird.
Crimson wrote: The new AP system is an improvement, though they should be more conservative in handing out the AP. A big part of the issue that most of the weapons and statlines were just converted in the new system (including the new wound chart) without taking in the account the effects of the altered mechanics. For example, perhaps cheap chaff infantry like guard should have only 6+ save. Low saves such as 5´+ and even 6+ are much better in this edition than in previous ones, where they were just completely ignored most of the time. So an average 6+ save in the 8th is worth about as much as 5+ save in the old system.
Surely the save system benefitted Marines more than IG?
I bet we could go back in time and find threads where Marine players incessantly whined complained that the amount of AP3 weapons armies could take in the game was TOO DAMN HIGH! Now, you get a 5+ at least against those weapons, a 4+ in cover.
In fact, if you really want me to, I'll go back and look myself. I distinctly remember Marines complaining about the number of AP3 weapons back before 8th edition was a twinkle GW's eye.
It was constant AP2 rather than AP3.
Also yeah the new AP system benefited Marines a lot, and I will constantly argue, as you know, this is the most durable Marines AND Terminators have been ever (as much as some ignorant will argue against the latter).
The issue is that it benefitted anything with a worse save moreso. Termagaunts now basically have the equivalent of a 6++ to any of the usual weapons you'd point at them, even if they had cover.
Huh, that's odd, Last I checked heavy bolters do ignore the gaunts armor save? Weird.
To bad it is still worse at killing them then before because of the new T system.
Crimson wrote: The new AP system is an improvement, though they should be more conservative in handing out the AP. A big part of the issue that most of the weapons and statlines were just converted in the new system (including the new wound chart) without taking in the account the effects of the altered mechanics. For example, perhaps cheap chaff infantry like guard should have only 6+ save. Low saves such as 5´+ and even 6+ are much better in this edition than in previous ones, where they were just completely ignored most of the time. So an average 6+ save in the 8th is worth about as much as 5+ save in the old system.
Surely the save system benefitted Marines more than IG?
I bet we could go back in time and find threads where Marine players incessantly whined complained that the amount of AP3 weapons armies could take in the game was TOO DAMN HIGH! Now, you get a 5+ at least against those weapons, a 4+ in cover.
In fact, if you really want me to, I'll go back and look myself. I distinctly remember Marines complaining about the number of AP3 weapons back before 8th edition was a twinkle GW's eye.
It was constant AP2 rather than AP3.
Also yeah the new AP system benefited Marines a lot, and I will constantly argue, as you know, this is the most durable Marines AND Terminators have been ever (as much as some ignorant will argue against the latter).
The issue is that it benefitted anything with a worse save moreso. Termagaunts now basically have the equivalent of a 6++ to any of the usual weapons you'd point at them, even if they had cover.
Huh, that's odd, Last I checked heavy bolters do ignore the gaunts armor save? Weird.
And amazingly not only are both wounded at the same rate (3+) but while the Gaunt had the same survivability, the Marine ends up with a 4+.
Also if you recall even a little bit correctly you will remember how bad Heavy Bolters were for anti-horde duty. Just think back a little. Just a little.
Well, I'm also advocating to ban the soups which is IMHO the main issue of 40k. I'm only interested in stand alone armies at competitive levels since many soups look like "legal cheating" for the amount of cheese with no drawbacks that they can have.
But that still doesn't answer the question. You claimed that Kabalites weren't taken because other Eldar troops were better/more efficient. Yet you're still proposing to nerf Kabalites while those better troops remain unchanged.
You say that more expensive guardsmen, cultists, etc would be unplayable but I don't think it's true. AM seems to play with 150+ points thanks to all their undercosted stuff, that's a fact. .
No, that's your opinion.
Just like it's your opinion that Guardsmen and Cultists are not merely undercosted but should cost 75% more than what they currently cost.
which make them expensive units, not cheap sources of CPs, you take boyz because you focus some tactics, involving CPs and/or buffing characters, around them. Melee troops are not even remotely as effective as shooty ones.
I agree that shooting > melee. But boyz are also better at melee than guardsmen are at shooting. Hell, they can also be pretty decent at shooting (worse BS than guardsmen, but 2 S4 shots at 18", whilst still having at least 2 WS3+ S4 attacks each.
I think 6-7 points of difference are fair between the cheap troops I listed and tacs.
And I think you're completely wrong.
More than that, though, I simply wouldn't use Tactical Marines as a yardstick for this. Hell, this entire thread (29 pages and countin) is about how to make Tactical Marines less garbage.
Blackie wrote: But I wouldn't make tacs 10ppm, they'd be undercosted.
I just wouldn't fix them with a price-drop. They're supposed to be on the elite end of basic troops, so I think something to make their damage output more meaningful would work a lot better in making them useful while still preserving their flavour.
Blackie wrote: 7ppm cultists and guardsmen wouldn't be unplayable
Yes they would.
Blackie wrote: they'd be mediocre, which is what cheap troops are supposed to be.
Infantry Squads at 7pts per model are not mediocre, they're hot garbage.
Is the goal to just make guardsmen into punching-bags for Marines? Because that's what this change will accomplish.
Or do you simply believe that no one who plays Infantry-Guard should be allowed to win games? I guess all this time I've been having fun wrong. Apparently the only way I'm allowed to play guard is to use minimum Conscript squads and then just spam tanks and artillery. Leafblower being well-known as the most fun list to emerge from 5th edition.
Blackie wrote: Yet mandatory for screening more valuable units and to get more CPs.
Nope. Literally no reason to not just take Conscripts instead.
Those competitive drukhari/aeldari lists should be nerfed quite badly to be honest. 3x flyers + 3 ravagers + 20 grots are insane, that's not even 40kIMHO.
So, once again, why is your priority to nerf the basic troops that - even at 6ppm - are so awful that most lists don't include them at all?
Why aren't you instead focusing on nerfing the Ravagers, Razorwings and Grots?
There are several units that are undercosted, considering all factions, not just 3. Don't you agree?
I agree that many units are indeed overcosted. However, you seem to be focusing on 3 units of which two is a mild offender at best and one that doens't even see play in competitive formats. Not to mention that your proposed "solution" is to increase their cost beyond all reason.
Blackie wrote: Think about super cheap HQs, with orks and drukhari I can't go under 62 (ok 55 with a stock big mek but it would be a plain tax with no use in the game) and 50 points and 50 is just the cost of the succubus, if I want a coven or kabal detachment I can't invest less than 72-75 points on an HQ. Same with SW. Those AM super cheap HQs should get price hikes or become elites.
But why are you using Dark Eldar HQs as a yardstick for balance?
They're among the absolute worst HQs in the entire game. The Archon is drastically worse than a Cannoness, yet costs 25pts more. The Succubus and Drazhar are melee HQs that are abysmal in melee. The Haemonculus's aura is okay but his entire armoury is a festering pile of dung. And not a single one of our sodding HQs has access to a mobility option.
Surely, if anything, we should be looking to improve DEHQs? Rather than saying "IOr HQs are poorly-designed crap, therefore no other army should be allowed good HQs either."
Not only for the stratagem, which only shields a single unit per turn and it's not even that efficient in mechanized lists. Ork players spam gretchins because they are an area denial unit, cheap objective grabbers and, most important, they unlock CPs for dirt cheap and orks are completely dependant on CPs to work. I'd consider taking gretchins even at 4ppm to be honest.
Fair enough.
I still think 40k could really do with doubling the cost of every unit in the game. It would give them a lot more design space to work with in terms of tweaking costs.
As it stands, at the level of guardsmen, it's virtually impossible to raise or lower the points on a unit without both having a big impact (e.g. raising Conscripts to 4ppm was a 33% increase in cost) and also treading on the toes of another unit.
You've currently got Gretchin, Conscripts, Guardsmen and Termagants all in the 3-4pt range. However, if you doubled the cost of every unit in 40k and worked from there, you could have Gretchin at 5pts, Conscripts at 6-7pts, Termagants at 7-8pts, Guardsmen at 9pts. It just gives you a lot more flexibility.
vipoid wrote: Unless, once again, you plan to increase the cost of everything else in the game by ~50%?
Wouldn't be a bad plan - the low points values are pretty crowded.
Lol you think that a 6pts guardsman would help balance when something like a strike would cost 40pts and a termintor almost 90, when both could die to 6-20pts guns en mass?
the Leviathan came down in cost, too.
Can they be legaly taken by all space marines?
They can be taken by any marine faction, yeah. Though fluff wise they shouldn't really appear outside 2nd Founding Chapters.
They do a huge amount to shore up a marine army but, then again, at 350ish points they really should.
Insectum7 wrote: What you call babysitting I call improving their damage output.
I have mixed feelings about the predator, but it does have the sort of thing you're looking for. Dakka Pred is pretty cheap, and if it's made of paper a Leman russ is a light cardstock.
Otherwise you have Stalkers and Whirlwinds for Autocannon equivalents.
Actually that does bring up another point; a lot of the good guns that Marines have access to are on platforms that don't get the Chapter Trait bonuses. Some of those traits are fairly significant.
Maybe not, but they do benefit from potentially immense buff auras that other factions don't get. Seems like a fairly common subfaction trait is reroll 1s to hit if you don't move, which Space Marines get a better version of anyways for just buying fairly mandatory HQs.
Plasma Cannons are on platforms that get the Chapter Traits. Dreadnoughts are cheap now. Iirc the Leviathan came down in cost, too.
Honestly, between Assault Cannons, Autocannon equivalents like the Icarus Stormcannon or Vengeance Launcher, the Leviathan Cannon-things, Predator Autocannons, Grav Cannons and oh-so-so-much-Plasma, it's not like Marines don't have options.
They don't "benefit enourmously" from those buffs, they're designed around them. Huge difference between those two. Space Marine shooting is awful without those buffs. It's not great with them.
Dreads did get more cost effective though.
That seems like some classic glass-half-empty thinking right there. I suppose the Guard gun stats and costs were done without considering Regimental traits, order buffs, etc. Right?
Insectum7 wrote: What you call babysitting I call improving their damage output.
I have mixed feelings about the predator, but it does have the sort of thing you're looking for. Dakka Pred is pretty cheap, and if it's made of paper a Leman russ is a light cardstock.
Otherwise you have Stalkers and Whirlwinds for Autocannon equivalents.
Actually that does bring up another point; a lot of the good guns that Marines have access to are on platforms that don't get the Chapter Trait bonuses. Some of those traits are fairly significant.
Maybe not, but they do benefit from potentially immense buff auras that other factions don't get. Seems like a fairly common subfaction trait is reroll 1s to hit if you don't move, which Space Marines get a better version of anyways for just buying fairly mandatory HQs.
Plasma Cannons are on platforms that get the Chapter Traits. Dreadnoughts are cheap now. Iirc the Leviathan came down in cost, too.
Honestly, between Assault Cannons, Autocannon equivalents like the Icarus Stormcannon or Vengeance Launcher, the Leviathan Cannon-things, Predator Autocannons, Grav Cannons and oh-so-so-much-Plasma, it's not like Marines don't have options.
They don't "benefit enourmously" from those buffs, they're designed around them. Huge difference between those two. Space Marine shooting is awful without those buffs. It's not great with them.
Dreads did get more cost effective though.
That seems like some classic glass-half-empty thinking right there. I suppose the Guard gun stats and costs were done without considering Regimental traits, order buffs, etc. Right?
A lot of the Codices seem to have been done by costing units outside the buffs of HQ units.
@ Mew28 and Slayer-Fan123: Hey, I'm just trying to cut down on the dishonesty some people like to throw around in these threads. If Space Marines are really that bad, then you don't need to straight up lie. Right?
Luke_Prowler wrote: @ Mew28 and Slayer-Fan123: Hey, I'm just trying to cut down on the dishonesty some people like to throw around in these threads. If Space Marines are really that bad, then you don't need to straight up lie. Right?
Hey I've totally pointed out inconsistency when people don't include points for their buffs.
Hey I've totally pointed out inconsistency when people don't include points for their buffs.
And you're a good person for doing so. But in the case for what I quoted, there ARE dedicated anti-infantry weapons out there and expecting basic weapons (which is what the bolter is at the end of the day) to be as good as them is not reasonable.
Martel732 wrote: I think the fundamental point behind pages and pages of argument is that power armor, as costed by GW, is a liability, not a boon of any kind.
Considering that no other unit but regular Space Marines (and even then, I think sternguard and vanguard are considered mostly fine) have been mentioned, I would say that's false. Unless you also consider SoB to have a problem because they also have power armors and potentially all other 3+ armor save on infantry since there is no game difference between their armor and that of Space Marines. I think the problem is mostly centered on some Space Marines units.
There's a host of Eldar units with power armor that aren't used, either.
I forgot about SoB. DG are different as well, as they have a stacked save. 9 pt power armor works. Power armor with FNP 5+++ works. But not 13+ pt models with 3+.
Tau power armor units are anything to write home about, either, imo. I just think the volume of shots in 8th ed makes 3+ armor ineffective even against AP 0. It's back to 7th ed when scatterlasers were forcing 70+ armor saves a turn, except now every army can do it.
Sternguard and vanguard aren't fine as soon as your opponent's turn rolls around. Because the 3+ is not significant protection anymore. You are just paying more points to die like a tac marine.
Sternguard and vanguard aren't fine as soon as your opponent's turn rolls around. Because the 3+ is not significant protection anymore. You are just paying more points to die like a tac marine.
You actually pay more for double the shots and attacks.
Durability is fine when the model isn't terribly expensive. The issue is how much more durable everyone else is, and the Elites kinda alleviate that issue.
Martel732 wrote: Double shots and attacks don't help you on their turn. That's why GK are terrible.
There's a slight difference between a 16 point model with a Storm Bolter and a 21 point model with a Storm Bolter at the same durability and you know that. Don't be disingenuous.
That's true, but they're both really bad. Especially compared to SoB and DG. I don't want to pay 13 points for T4 3+, much less 16 or 17. Not in a game where (almost) nothing lives.
Martel732 wrote: That's true, but they're both really bad. Especially compared to SoB and DG. I don't want to pay 13 points for T4 3+, much less 16 or 17. Not in a game where (almost) nothing lives.
Plague Marines have no bite for their cost, which is why you don't see them outside niche builds like the Grenade rush.
Martel732 wrote: Double shots and attacks don't help you on their turn. That's why GK are terrible.
There's a slight difference between a 16 point model with a Storm Bolter and a 21 point model with a Storm Bolter at the same durability and you know that. Don't be disingenuous.
You have tried to debate with this guy before, right?
And I thought Sternguard with Storm Shields was meant to be worth at least testing following CA2018?
Martel732 wrote: Double shots and attacks don't help you on their turn. That's why GK are terrible.
There's a slight difference between a 16 point model with a Storm Bolter and a 21 point model with a Storm Bolter at the same durability and you know that. Don't be disingenuous.
You have tried to debate with this guy before, right?
And I thought Sternguard with Storm Shields was meant to be worth at least testing following CA2018?
They are, but do you really feel that a 3++ for 2 points is remotely defenceable as a balanced points cost. It's another GW special style of fix if you over cost Spacemarines, undercost their wargear rather than admit that a spacemarine is overcosted.
Compair a tac marine to an intercessor 's hilarious
3 points for +1 wound, +1 attack, +6 inches of range, -1AP.
It's almost as rediculous as deathwatch special issue ammo.
Martel732 wrote: That's true, but they're both really bad. Especially compared to SoB and DG. I don't want to pay 13 points for T4 3+, much less 16 or 17. Not in a game where (almost) nothing lives.
Plague Marines have no bite for their cost, which is why you don't see them outside niche builds like the Grenade rush.
I mean, they can take 3 special weapons per 5 men, whilst also having T5 and 3+/5++/5+++ saves.
Martel732 wrote: That's true, but they're both really bad. Especially compared to SoB and DG. I don't want to pay 13 points for T4 3+, much less 16 or 17. Not in a game where (almost) nothing lives.
Plague Marines have no bite for their cost, which is why you don't see them outside niche builds like the Grenade rush.
I mean, they can take 3 special weapons per 5 men, whilst also having T5 and 3+/5++/5+++ saves.
They hardly seem bad.
They can also rapid fire at 18", that's 6 plasma shots for 111 points at that range
You claimed that Kabalites weren't taken because other Eldar troops were better/more efficient. Yet you're still proposing to nerf Kabalites while those better troops remain unchanged.
I simply don't understand this logic.
I still think 40k could really do with doubling the cost of every unit in the game. It would give them a lot more design space to work with in terms of tweaking costs.
As it stands, at the level of guardsmen, it's virtually impossible to raise or lower the points on a unit without both having a big impact (e.g. raising Conscripts to 4ppm was a 33% increase in cost) and also treading on the toes of another unit.
You've currently got Gretchin, Conscripts, Guardsmen and Termagants all in the 3-4pt range. However, if you doubled the cost of every unit in 40k and worked from there, you could have Gretchin at 5pts, Conscripts at 6-7pts, Termagants at 7-8pts, Guardsmen at 9pts. It just gives you a lot more flexibility.
I think there are several units in 40k that are undercosted, some of them extremely undercosted. I've just made a few examples, who said that other troops, if they are too cheap for what they do, should remain unchanged? The majority of the undercosted stuff also doesn't belong to the troops choices.
Doubling the cost of every unit in the game worths nothing, it would be playing at 1000 points claiming they are 2000 points instead. You can already play at 1000 points if you want to.
I'd keep 3-4 pts range only unit that really die with a stiff breeze, like T2 no save. Conscripts are basically guardsmen so they can't be chepaer than -1ppm compared to guardsmen. If I propose guardsmen at 6-7ppm, they should be 5-6ppm of course.
IMHO one of the main issues with power armor dudes is the competition with (too) cheap troops. Units like boyz are absolute trash in a 3x10 set up, which means 210 points already, worse than 3x5 tacs with no upgrades which are even 15pts cheaper, you need a lot more plus buffing characters and CPs invested on them. Other troops instead do work very good without investing many points and/or CPs on them, that's a huge issue, especially if those units can be part of the same faction as power armor dudes with no drawbacks. You can't expect troops to do the heavy work either if their faction has 250+ entries and every sort of buffed elite and unkillable superhero. Banning the soups solves a lot of problems for SM and equivalents because it cuts off the most overpowered lists, which are all soups and all hard counters to SM. Then just limit the number of CPs available since armies like SM can't have a high number of them while also bringing an effective list. I think cheap troops in the range of T3 5+ and shooting oriented should be 6-7ppm, only close combat oriented or weaker ones could be cheaper. No HQs should cost less than 50ppm either. If you want lots of CPs you must include garbage units as a tax, that's a fair trade off.
Power armor dudes in 8th edition became a bit more resilient with the new AP system, while cheap troops became way more resilient since templates/blasts could cause more hits than the D3/D6 system and the weapons that usually targeted them are now AP- when they used to bypass their saves completely. So they can't stay at the same points of previous editions, especially now that they are also needed to unlock CPs, that's what I think about the matter.
They can be taken by any marine faction, yeah. Though fluff wise they shouldn't really appear outside 2nd Founding Chapters.
They do a huge amount to shore up a marine army but, then again, at 350ish points they really should.
thanks. my friend has a few for sale and he still owes me stuff. Maybe I''ll get one or two, 350pts for something in a GK army isn't that much either.
Just checked the FAQ for Index Imperial Armour Adaptes Astartes.
Unfortunately GK or legion of the damned arn't legal keywords to replace chaptor that is on the Leviathans datasheet.
But ironically deathwatch is well done GW.
Karol 768146 10292715 wrote:
thanks. my friend has a few for sale and he still owes me stuff. Maybe I''ll get one or two, 350pts for something in a GK army isn't that much either.
Just checked the FAQ for Index Imperial Armour Adaptes Astartes.
Unfortunately GK or legion of the damned arn't legal keywords to replace chaptor that is on the Leviathans datasheet.
But ironically deathwatch is well done GW.
Am not even sad. Does the FWFAQ say why ? I try opening their page, but at school it always blocks me.
Karol 768146 10292715 wrote:
thanks. my friend has a few for sale and he still owes me stuff. Maybe I''ll get one or two, 350pts for something in a GK army isn't that much either.
Just checked the FAQ for Index Imperial Armour Adaptes Astartes.
Unfortunately GK or legion of the damned arn't legal keywords to replace chaptor that is on the Leviathans datasheet.
But ironically deathwatch is well done GW.
Am not even sad. Does the FWFAQ say why ? I try opening their page, but at school it always blocks me.
It's on the GW site, as Ironically forgeworld wrote the imperial armour index, but GW wrote the FAQ for the book. I assume it's a lore thing as most of the FW models are 30k units that just happen to be better than everything in the codex as Forgeworld appears to have playtested the indexes against the guard eldar Codex's as they went up in points in CA2017 to come back down in CA2018.
Karol wrote: ...Am not even sad. Does the FWFAQ say why ? I try opening their page, but at school it always blocks me.
If the FAQs said why strange things exist they'd have to explain things like why Space Marine HQs forget how motorcycles work when they go off to join the Deathwatch, or why only Terminator Sergeants are skilled enough to use power swords instead of power fists, or any of a hundred other bizarre decisions with no explanation outside "that's what we sell a kit for".
If I were to try and back-fit an explanation for you I'd suggest it might have something to do with the fact that the Deathwatch might have begged, borrowed, or salvaged Heresy-era vehicles from First/Second Founding Chapters, whereas the Grey Knights' tactical doctrine/emphasis on fighting Daemons that pop up out of nowhere at point blank range makes most of the Heresy-era arsenal of big long-ranged guns less relevant than their own baby-carrier robots for the battles they're fighting. I might also observe that the Grey Knights have their own Forge World models (admittedly not very many or very useful) where the Deathwatch don't and someone at FW was thinking "we need to make sure we make some models for everyone, but we don't make anything specifically for the Deathwatch, but they use Space Marine stuff for everything else..." and then couldn't be bothered to go out and write a specific list of models the Deathwatch do or don't have access to.
(I don't agree with either explanation, and I think the GK and the Deathwatch should both have access to variants on chassis they've got (Dreadnaughts, Rhinos, Land Raiders...) and not have access to overlarge chassis that don't fit the rapid-response nature of their combat doctrine (the Spartan/Cerberus/Typhon, the Fellblade, the Astraeus...), but I don't write the rules.)
(Also if we start asking "why do the Grey Knights not have {x}?" we have to start asking about things like the Predator, and infantry with lascannons, and we might have to start re-examining why some dolt decided to build a standalone Codex around six slight variations on one specialist infantry squad with a limited and inflexible arsenal and no non-transport vehicles.)
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Ice_can wrote: ...I assume it's a lore thing as most of the FW models are 30k units that just happen to be better than everything in the codex...
Not...usually. The 30k models are usually side-grades on the models in the Codex rather than being straight-up better; a Relic Contemptor or a Leviathan are larger weight classes of Dreadnaught, they're bigger but they're not more cost-effective than just taking more Venerable Castaferrums (boxnaughts/plastic Dreadnaughts), for instance.
Martel732 wrote: That's true, but they're both really bad. Especially compared to SoB and DG. I don't want to pay 13 points for T4 3+, much less 16 or 17. Not in a game where (almost) nothing lives.
Plague Marines have no bite for their cost, which is why you don't see them outside niche builds like the Grenade rush.
Martel732 wrote: Double shots and attacks don't help you on their turn. That's why GK are terrible.
There's a slight difference between a 16 point model with a Storm Bolter and a 21 point model with a Storm Bolter at the same durability and you know that. Don't be disingenuous.
You have tried to debate with this guy before, right?
And I thought Sternguard with Storm Shields was meant to be worth at least testing following CA2018?
Test, sure. But both are horribly priced compared to guardsmen.
Martel732 wrote: Double shots and attacks don't help you on their turn. That's why GK are terrible.
There's a slight difference between a 16 point model with a Storm Bolter and a 21 point model with a Storm Bolter at the same durability and you know that. Don't be disingenuous.
You have tried to debate with this guy before, right?
And I thought Sternguard with Storm Shields was meant to be worth at least testing following CA2018?
Test, sure. But both are horribly priced compared to guardsmen.
If your yardstick for balance is one of the most broken troop units in the game then even the good troops look bad in comparison.
Compair them to 5ppm guard with 40point HQ's and things stop looking so broken.
That GW didn't do this in CA2018 is a travesty of justice but it GW and 40K I didn't expect them to get it right.
Ice_can wrote: ...I assume it's a lore thing as most of the FW models are 30k units that just happen to be better than everything in the codex...
Not...usually. The 30k models are usually side-grades on the models in the Codex rather than being straight-up better; a Relic Contemptor or a Leviathan are larger weight classes of Dreadnaught, they're bigger but they're not more cost-effective than just taking more Venerable Castaferrums (boxnaughts/plastic Dreadnaughts), for instance.
I have to say I find my sicarans and deredeo etc always trade way better than thier equivelent points in codex models.
Maybe CA2018 might have made it less one sided, but I find I get a lot less feel badsies playing with FW marines than codex marines.
Martel732 wrote: Double shots and attacks don't help you on their turn. That's why GK are terrible.
There's a slight difference between a 16 point model with a Storm Bolter and a 21 point model with a Storm Bolter at the same durability and you know that. Don't be disingenuous.
You have tried to debate with this guy before, right?
And I thought Sternguard with Storm Shields was meant to be worth at least testing following CA2018?
I don't know why the Internet seems to have lost its collective s*** over SB/SS Deathwatch Veterans. I've been using Deathwatch Veterans with Storm Bolters at 20ppm (pre-Chapter Approved) because they do a significant amount of damage, but they're also fundamentally a suicide squad that comes out of their transport, hoses down what they have to hose down, and dies very quickly if the other player decides to shoot at them; spending any points at all giving my suicide squads a 3++, especially when it isn't AP that kills them (volume of S3 will kill them if they're not in cover, if they are in cover volume of AP-1 (whatever the Strength) is plenty) isn't exactly a high-priority thing to me when I could just take the same suicide squads as before at 18ppm.
Martel732 wrote: That's true, but they're both really bad. Especially compared to SoB and DG. I don't want to pay 13 points for T4 3+, much less 16 or 17. Not in a game where (almost) nothing lives.
Plague Marines have no bite for their cost, which is why you don't see them outside niche builds like the Grenade rush.
I mean, they can take 3 special weapons per 5 men, whilst also having T5 and 3+/5++/5+++ saves.
They hardly seem bad.
They're bad as they're easier tarpitted too, and proliferation of special weapons works when you're super cheap to begin with. They gained a good amount this edition, but they're not good. I'm also still terribly butthurt they basically lost an attack this edition.
Martel732 wrote: Double shots and attacks don't help you on their turn. That's why GK are terrible.
There's a slight difference between a 16 point model with a Storm Bolter and a 21 point model with a Storm Bolter at the same durability and you know that. Don't be disingenuous.
You have tried to debate with this guy before, right?
And I thought Sternguard with Storm Shields was meant to be worth at least testing following CA2018?
They are, but do you really feel that a 3++ for 2 points is remotely defenceable as a balanced points cost. It's another GW special style of fix if you over cost Spacemarines, undercost their wargear rather than admit that a spacemarine is overcosted.
Compair a tac marine to an intercessor 's hilarious
3 points for +1 wound, +1 attack, +6 inches of range, -1AP.
It's almost as rediculous as deathwatch special issue ammo.
A horror with changeling comes pretty close to a 3++.
60 horrors pay 1.7 points for a FNP from The Changeling and 1.1 for S4 from a Changecaster. They receive 0.18 wounds per bolter shot for a total of 1.77 points of damage. A DW Vet w/ SB with SS takes 0.11 wounds for a total of 2.22 points of damage.
Horrors suffer from S6 weapons, but marines suffer from S5 and there are way more of those.
The horrors produce 3 S4 shots at 18" - 0.67 GEQ, 0.25 MEQ for 9.8 points.
We'll give the vet an average of 3 kraken shots - 1.2 GEQ, 0.58 MEQ for 20 points.
So horrors in this setup are good match in durability and lethality. They have the chance for a smite every now and then, but they're harder to get in range with all models and degrade.
Obviously, there are lots of layers for nuance here, but the notion that the SS models are going to break the scene with absurd levels of durability seems unlikely. What is *might* do is force people into taking fewer big guns.
I could get all silly and reduce the per model cost of horrors by taking 90. And grab them a +1 to wound from the caster I already paid for and pretend those shots are all in range to kill 500 points worth of DW Vets with Stormshields.
Insectum7 wrote: What you call babysitting I call improving their damage output.
I have mixed feelings about the predator, but it does have the sort of thing you're looking for. Dakka Pred is pretty cheap, and if it's made of paper a Leman russ is a light cardstock.
Otherwise you have Stalkers and Whirlwinds for Autocannon equivalents.
Actually that does bring up another point; a lot of the good guns that Marines have access to are on platforms that don't get the Chapter Trait bonuses. Some of those traits are fairly significant.
Maybe not, but they do benefit from potentially immense buff auras that other factions don't get. Seems like a fairly common subfaction trait is reroll 1s to hit if you don't move, which Space Marines get a better version of anyways for just buying fairly mandatory HQs.
Plasma Cannons are on platforms that get the Chapter Traits. Dreadnoughts are cheap now. Iirc the Leviathan came down in cost, too.
Honestly, between Assault Cannons, Autocannon equivalents like the Icarus Stormcannon or Vengeance Launcher, the Leviathan Cannon-things, Predator Autocannons, Grav Cannons and oh-so-so-much-Plasma, it's not like Marines don't have options.
They don't "benefit enourmously" from those buffs, they're designed around them. Huge difference between those two. Space Marine shooting is awful without those buffs. It's not great with them.
Dreads did get more cost effective though.
That seems like some classic glass-half-empty thinking right there. I suppose the Guard gun stats and costs were done without considering Regimental traits, order buffs, etc. Right?
A lot of the Codices seem to have been done by costing units outside the buffs of HQ units.
Things aren't always what they seem. But if they are pointed around buffs, how do you square the fact that the same set of weapons costs the same for all flavors of loyalists, despite only one subfaction getting Guilliman? Even Chaos with fewer buffs pays the same.
At the end of the day it still looks to me that certain players are looking for some sort of "magic bullet gun", while the options available to the Space Marines are still providing pretty comparable options to those of other books.
Martel732 wrote: Double shots and attacks don't help you on their turn. That's why GK are terrible.
There's a slight difference between a 16 point model with a Storm Bolter and a 21 point model with a Storm Bolter at the same durability and you know that. Don't be disingenuous.
You have tried to debate with this guy before, right?
And I thought Sternguard with Storm Shields was meant to be worth at least testing following CA2018?
They are, but do you really feel that a 3++ for 2 points is remotely defenceable as a balanced points cost. It's another GW special style of fix if you over cost Spacemarines, undercost their wargear rather than admit that a spacemarine is overcosted.
Compair a tac marine to an intercessor 's hilarious
3 points for +1 wound, +1 attack, +6 inches of range, -1AP.
It's almost as rediculous as deathwatch special issue ammo.
A horror with changeling comes pretty close to a 3++.
60 horrors pay 1.7 points for a FNP from The Changeling and 1.1 for S4 from a Changecaster. They receive 0.18 wounds per bolter shot for a total of 1.77 points of damage. A DW Vet w/ SB with SS takes 0.11 wounds for a total of 2.22 points of damage.
Horrors suffer from S6 weapons, but marines suffer from S5 and there are way more of those.
The horrors produce 3 S4 shots at 18" - 0.67 GEQ, 0.25 MEQ for 9.8 points.
We'll give the vet an average of 3 kraken shots - 1.2 GEQ, 0.58 MEQ for 20 points.
So horrors in this setup are good match in durability and lethality. They have the chance for a smite every now and then, but they're harder to get in range with all models and degrade.
Obviously, there are lots of layers for nuance here, but the notion that the SS models are going to break the scene with absurd levels of durability seems unlikely. What is *might* do is force people into taking fewer big guns.
I could get all silly and reduce the per model cost of horrors by taking 90. And grab them a +1 to wound from the caster I already paid for and pretend those shots are all in range to kill 500 points worth of DW Vets with Stormshields.
Sorry Daedalus81 but I'm not following the point your making.
I was more talking basic codex tac marine vrs intercessor vrs deathwatch veteran's shows some very wonky costing IMHO.
It wasn't ment to imply that deathwatch are undercosted it more that the points are just allocated inconsistently.
I think the basic marine should be cheaper but the special issue ammo and the cost of going from tac to intercessors should be larger was what I ment.
Insectum7 wrote: What you call babysitting I call improving their damage output.
I have mixed feelings about the predator, but it does have the sort of thing you're looking for. Dakka Pred is pretty cheap, and if it's made of paper a Leman russ is a light cardstock.
Otherwise you have Stalkers and Whirlwinds for Autocannon equivalents.
Actually that does bring up another point; a lot of the good guns that Marines have access to are on platforms that don't get the Chapter Trait bonuses. Some of those traits are fairly significant.
Maybe not, but they do benefit from potentially immense buff auras that other factions don't get. Seems like a fairly common subfaction trait is reroll 1s to hit if you don't move, which Space Marines get a better version of anyways for just buying fairly mandatory HQs.
Plasma Cannons are on platforms that get the Chapter Traits. Dreadnoughts are cheap now. Iirc the Leviathan came down in cost, too.
Honestly, between Assault Cannons, Autocannon equivalents like the Icarus Stormcannon or Vengeance Launcher, the Leviathan Cannon-things, Predator Autocannons, Grav Cannons and oh-so-so-much-Plasma, it's not like Marines don't have options.
They don't "benefit enourmously" from those buffs, they're designed around them. Huge difference between those two. Space Marine shooting is awful without those buffs. It's not great with them.
Dreads did get more cost effective though.
That seems like some classic glass-half-empty thinking right there. I suppose the Guard gun stats and costs were done without considering Regimental traits, order buffs, etc. Right?
A lot of the Codices seem to have been done by costing units outside the buffs of HQ units.
Things aren't always what they seem. But if they are pointed around buffs, how do you square the fact that the same set of weapons costs the same for all flavors of loyalists, despite only one subfaction getting Guilliman? Even Chaos with fewer buffs pays the same.
At the end of the day it still looks to me that certain players are looking for some sort of "magic bullet gun", while the options available to the Space Marines are still providing pretty comparable options to those of other books.
You square it off by pointing the buffer appropriately based on the different army constructions they can help.
So while Roboute is appropriate at nearly 400 points for ALL the bonuses he confers, the Ultramarines he buffs were already pointed like they had him included in the cost, which not only affects any build without him but any other Marine army as well. That's a reason I'm for consolidation of the Angels and potentially Wolves, cutting out a lot of bloat, and making units work themselves without the need for buffs.
I also really do feel this is an issue for several armies as well. Ork Boyz are priced like you take the free bomb upgrade now, whereas you didn't likely take it in the first place. Conscripts are priced like they are under Petrov's Pistol at all times. Gaunts are priced like your Synapse providers are all as cheap as Zoanthropes.
When you do that, you can start figuring out how much HQ units should be and what their buffs might be worth.
Sorry Daedalus81 but I'm not following the point your making.
I was more talking basic codex tac marine vrs intercessor vrs deathwatch veteran's shows some very wonky costing IMHO.
It wasn't ment to imply that deathwatch are undercosted it more that the points are just allocated inconsistently.
I think the basic marine should be cheaper but the special issue ammo and the cost of going from tac to intercessors should be larger was what I ment.
It seems like GW's overall goal was to reduce the cost of marines through wargear only and make them more deadly for fewer points.
The drop to VV & Chosen are needed to make them competitive in their own book - as elite units they're not obsec and against other more useful units they used to pale in comparison (if only slightly). So, 14 point VV are not an admission that GW thinks marines should be cheaper and we should probably act accordingly for now. It's time to set aside the naked marine and start putting gear on them.
Deathwatch are a weird crosspoint that muddies the waters, but then you're putting a lot of points into an army that doesn't have a lot of options other than marines. You can slap them on top a list instead of IS, but then what problem does that solve that IS have not?
Sorry Daedalus81 but I'm not following the point your making.
I was more talking basic codex tac marine vrs intercessor vrs deathwatch veteran's shows some very wonky costing IMHO.
It wasn't ment to imply that deathwatch are undercosted it more that the points are just allocated inconsistently.
I think the basic marine should be cheaper but the special issue ammo and the cost of going from tac to intercessors should be larger was what I ment.
It seems like GW's overall goal was to reduce the cost of marines through wargear only and make them more deadly for fewer points.
The drop to VV & Chosen are needed to make them competitive in their own book - as elite units they're not obsec and against other more useful units they used to pale in comparison (if only slightly). So, 14 point VV are not an admission that GW thinks marines should be cheaper and we should probably act accordingly for now. It's time to set aside the naked marine and start putting gear on them.
Deathwatch are a weird crosspoint that muddies the waters, but then you're putting a lot of points into an army that doesn't have a lot of options other than marines. You can slap them on top a list instead of IS, but then what problem does that solve that IS have not?
Yeah it's a bit of a weird direction but thinking about it a bit more what it probably does allow marines to be come is while still not really a competitive list choice they possibly stumble into the casually viable army club. Especially as a beginner army as if your wargear is undercosted and the points shovelled onto the base modem it's probably a lot more beginner friendly. As they are punished less for taking the wrong special or heavy or other cool add on over taking non. But they don't inadvertently become a broken tournament army.
I'm probably over thinking this and giving GW credit for an idea that is probably more dumb luck than design intention.
Once I equip a marine with anything, it becomes a huge liability in terms of points/wound. CA didnt really fix that. 13 pts/wound is not good. 20+ is volunteering for tabling.
Yeah it's a bit of a weird direction but thinking about it a bit more what it probably does allow marines to be come is while still not really a competitive list choice they possibly stumble into the casually viable army club. Especially as a beginner army as if your wargear is undercosted and the points shovelled onto the base modem it's probably a lot more beginner friendly. As they are punished less for taking the wrong special or heavy or other cool add on over taking non. But they don't inadvertently become a broken tournament army.
I'm probably over thinking this and giving GW credit for an idea that is probably more dumb luck than design intention.
I'm on the fence. I was pretty sure marines needed a point cut, but I'm ok working in dirt cheap autocannons and plasma.
Take a min CSM unit:
Bolters only - 1.5 GEQ for 65 points (43.3 per)
AC and 4 bolters - 2.1 GEQ for 75 points (35.7 per) - 18% fewer points needed to kill the same amount
The unit got expressly better at killing everything. This is effectively as if those marines were more than 2 points cheaper (55 / 1.5 = 36.7).
Shooting MEQ is even better.
Bolters - 0.55 (118 per)
AC and 4 bolters (86 per) - 28% fewer points needed to kill the same amount
And the units with an AC can be shooting when other units might not be in range. Now, it doesn't get us more wounds, but it makes killing stuff easier and that's what marines should do.
I think there are several units in 40k that are undercosted, some of them extremely undercosted. I've just made a few examples, who said that other troops, if they are too cheap for what they do, should remain unchanged? The majority of the undercosted stuff also doesn't belong to the troops choices.
Sure. But it's rather strange that you bring up 3 troop choices rather than the Knights or other units that actually do the real work in lists.
Doubling the cost of every unit in the game worths nothing, it would be playing at 1000 points claiming they are 2000 points instead. You can already play at 1000 points if you want to.
I'd keep 3-4 pts range only unit that really die with a stiff breeze, like T2 no save.
Or, once again, we could double up on points and actually give ourselves some design space to work with.
Blackie wrote: Conscripts are basically guardsmen so they can't be chepaer than -1ppm compared to guardsmen.
So "basically guardsmen" equates to having:
- Worse WS - Worse BS - Drastically worse Morale
- Fail Orders on a 4+
- No Sergeant
- Can't take Special Weapons
- Can't take Heavy Weapons
Your definition of what should cost 3-4pts seems designed to arbitrarily exclude Conscripts, despite them being a really awful unit.
Blackie wrote: If I propose guardsmen at 6-7ppm, they should be 5-6ppm of course.
In which case they'd still be used. Because if IG troops are going to all be stupidly overprised, then you might as well just go with the cheapest.
IMHO one of the main issues with power armor dudes is the competition with (too) cheap troops.
Demonstrably untrue. Being cheap is no guarantee that a unit will see play. Remind me - how many competitive lists are running 6pt Kabalites?
Blackie wrote: Units like boyz are absolute trash in a 3x10 set up, which means 210 points already, worse than 3x5 tacs with no upgrades which are even 15pts cheaper, you need a lot more plus buffing characters and CPs invested on them.
So . . . are you arguing against yourself now? Because you seem to be proving that your previous statement was untrue.
Blackie wrote: Other troops instead do work very good without investing many points and/or CPs on them, that's a huge issue, especially if those units can be part of the same faction as power armor dudes with no drawbacks.
The latter part is why Allies either shouldn't exist or else should have an actual downside.
Blackie wrote: You can't expect troops to do the heavy work either if their faction has 250+ entries and every sort of buffed elite and unkillable superhero.
See above. This is why the game should be played Codex vs. Codex, not Faction vs. Faction.
Blackie wrote: Banning the soups solves a lot of problems for SM and equivalents because it cuts off the most overpowered lists, which are all soups and all hard counters to SM.
This at least is something we can definitely agree on.
Blackie wrote: Then just limit the number of CPs available since armies like SM can't have a high number of them while also bringing an effective list.
Alternatively, perhaps CPs should be tied to points invested, rather than in number of units? e.g. if you give 1CP per 100pts of troops, then it doesn't matter if your troops are cheap or expensive. Same with stuff like HQs. If you need 100pts of HQs to get 1CP, then IG need to bring 2-3 of their cheap ones to get the same benefit as a single SM Captain.
Blackie wrote: I think cheap troops in the range of T3 5+ and shooting oriented should be 6-7ppm, only close combat oriented or weaker ones could be cheaper.
And this is where you lose me. You're asking that weak troops have their points increased far beyond what those models are actually worth. And I simply can't get behind that.
Blackie wrote: No HQs should cost less than 50ppm either.
Why? Why should a HQ that's not worth 50pts have to cost 50pts anyway?
I really don't understand what you want at this point. Unless you just really like sh*tting on IG and IG players?
Blackie wrote: If you want lots of CPs you must include garbage units as a tax, that's a fair trade off.
I was right, then. You want nothing more than to sh*t on IG players. I guess you're one of those people who thinks that IG should be an NPC faction that only exists to get curb-stomped by other armies.
Because no one advocating for balance would be deliberately trying to make units "trash". If you really wanted balance, you'd be trying to make sure that *no* unit was trash.
Because no one advocating for balance would be deliberately trying to make units "trash". If you really wanted balance, you'd be trying to make sure that *no* unit was trash.
Not to deflate or attack any side of this debate. But one unit will always end up in the trash no matter how hard the designer tries or intends for it to go.
Martel732 wrote: Ig wins without having to even see the target. And they dont pay for the privilege.
Are we still talking about IG infantry here? Because I don't recall them having a rule that lets them shoot models they can't see.
Asherian Command wrote: Not to deflate or attack any side of this debate. But one unit will always end up in the trash no matter how hard the designer tries or intends for it to go.
I'm not saying that no unit will never be trash, I'm saying that you shouldn't start out with the intention of making a unit trash.
No, the units they protect do. This combo greatly devalues power armor, and this is a thread about power armor. IG artillery should cost more, as it is functionally immune to assault.
Because no one advocating for balance would be deliberately trying to make units "trash". If you really wanted balance, you'd be trying to make sure that *no* unit was trash.
Not to deflate or attack any side of this debate. But one unit will always end up in the trash no matter how hard the designer tries or intends for it to go.
If tomorrw GW decides that Knights are no longer legal for matched play, everyone would feel the impact. If the same was done to something like GK, am not even sure most GK players would care. Non GK players wouldn't care for sure, as GK are neither good ally, a good counter, they don't do better other imperial units won't do cheaper and often times better.
Imperial Guard artillery is just flatly overpowered and has been since the start of 8th edition.
4 points for something as amazing as a Guardsman is just bonkers. They are very clearly 7 point models with all of the synergy they have.
And all of the artillery is just ridiculous icing on an absurd cake. The fact that the guns are -2 and have D3 damage is laughable, and the ones that don't get silly things like crazy shot volume and rerolls baked in.
2W, 2A base marines is where it's at. Primaris can be made into something entirely separate. Rerollable hits, wounds, and saves of 1 for all things ADEPTUS ASTARTES. Change the aura mechanic altogether.
Marmatag wrote: Imperial Guard artillery is just flatly overpowered and has been since the start of 8th edition.
4 points for something as amazing as a Guardsman is just bonkers. They are very clearly 7 point models with all of the synergy they have.
And all of the artillery is just ridiculous icing on an absurd cake. The fact that the guns are -2 and have D3 damage is laughable, and the ones that don't get silly things like crazy shot volume and rerolls baked in.
2W, 2A base marines is where it's at. Primaris can be made into something entirely separate. Rerollable hits, wounds, and saves of 1 for all things ADEPTUS ASTARTES. Change the aura mechanic altogether.
7 is a bridge too far.
The artillery is good, more because of LOS than because of stats. A manticore is not particularly more scary than a battle cannon, which has the essentially the same effectiveness against anything not T5/8 (and add on the competition from the Tank Commander now).
But manticores or any of the IG artilery never fire when in LoS. And if they are in LoS of anything then it is either end game and they are doing some last turn driving or they have a juicy screen in front of them.
Marmatag wrote: 4 points for something as amazing as a Guardsman is just bonkers. They are very clearly 7 point models with all of the synergy they have.
I don't know why I bother posting in these threads.
It seems I always forget that Marine players think balance equates to "every army that isn't Marines should be nerfed into the ground, so that Marines can curb-stomp it".
Welp, since you're basically asking for my army to be made unplayably bad, let me return the favour and say that I hope your Marines remain garbage.
(To any Marine players who don't think this way, I apologise. However, I'm afraid that the level of spite I've seen in this thread has caused all my sympathy to drain away.)
Marmatag wrote: 4 points for something as amazing as a Guardsman is just bonkers. They are very clearly 7 point models with all of the synergy they have.
I don't know why I bother posting in these threads.
It seems I always forget that Marine players think balance equates to "every army that isn't Marines should be nerfed into the ground, so that Marines can curb-stomp it".
Welp, since you're basically asking for my army to be made unplayably bad, let me return the favour and say that I hope your Marines remain garbage.
(To any Marine players who don't think this way, I apologise. However, I'm afraid that the level of spite I've seen in this thread has caused all my sympathy to drain away.)
Honestly that idea that guardsmen... should be as expensive as guardians makes me laugh.
No guardsmen should just be 5ppm nothing more nothing less. Veterans should be a troop choice at 6ppm but with better morale and carapace armor for +1 pts per a model (+4 save) and half cost transports (*cough*).
Increasing it might do some damage to those lists but its not nearly enough the paradigm and the 'skys the limit' design of 40k 8th edition is a deteriment to everyone involved, especially things that can counter knights *cough*
Why the space marines priemer battle tank sucks beyond belief i'll never know... then our sciarian tanks which are meant to be the best space marine battle tank, could easily be replaced by a shadowsword....
Marmatag wrote: 4 points for something as amazing as a Guardsman is just bonkers. They are very clearly 7 point models with all of the synergy they have.
I don't know why I bother posting in these threads.
It seems I always forget that Marine players think balance equates to "every army that isn't Marines should be nerfed into the ground, so that Marines can curb-stomp it".
Welp, since you're basically asking for my army to be made unplayably bad, let me return the favour and say that I hope your Marines remain garbage.
(To any Marine players who don't think this way, I apologise. However, I'm afraid that the level of spite I've seen in this thread has caused all my sympathy to drain away.)
Sympathy is irrelevant. There is only math. The math makes ig soul crushing to play against. The matches are always a miserable slog, even in a rare victory. The same math makes most 3+ armor units crap. Exceptions have special rules to bail them out.
They can be taken by any marine faction, yeah. Though fluff wise they shouldn't really appear outside 2nd Founding Chapters.
They do a huge amount to shore up a marine army but, then again, at 350ish points they really should.
thanks. my friend has a few for sale and he still owes me stuff. Maybe I''ll get one or two, 350pts for something in a GK army isn't that much either.
Just checked the FAQ for Index Imperial Armour Adaptes Astartes.
Unfortunately GK or legion of the damned arn't legal keywords to replace chaptor that is on the Leviathans datasheet.
But ironically deathwatch is well done GW.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the GK slipped my mind. I can honestly see why Grey Knights don't have access to Leviathans, though. The Imperium can't actually build the things anymore.
Back on topic. I feel the Leviathan is such a popular model because of its ability to nuke anything it hits. It is one of the only Marine models that will allow you to concentrate 350 points of assets and confidently gain 300 points back. The rest of the Marine range is absurdly pillow-fisted.
for every single edition, never having balance, and the game designers themselves having no interest in balance on account of greed. Previously guard used to suck arse, now it's just elite armies this edition, although elite armies have never truly been "elite" in 
Marines MUST be a mid tier punching bag. MUST BE. Its the cornerstone of 
, whilst still having at least 2 WS3+ S4 attacks each.
